Wild
by GraceFisher
Summary: Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better. (8th Year, slow burn, poetic) The one where Harry has a sexuality crisis, Draco has an existential crisis, and they accidentally fall in love
1. Alone

**Pulvis Et Umbra Sumus - We Are But Dust and Shadow**

Hello!

This is a slowburn, pretty experimental, abstract and poetic, with angst, attraction and eventual romance. Harry's POV

The story came to me in two images out of nowhere, transparently pale hands that ran with electricity, and Harry's fire stored up under the surface of his skin

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A/N edit:

I had an impulse to change the title, not sure where it came from, not sure why, but Here We Are - I'm so damn neurotic that I can't commit to one thing for too long

* * *

Harry was captivated.

It had started about two weeks since term had begun. He, Ron and Hermione sat in the middle of the Gryffindor table for breakfast. Ron was bleary eyed but still managed to keep up the hushed, tight-knit conversation with Hermione, a slow smile tweaking up the corner of his lips. They had both leaned in close and Hermione was giggling. Harry was staring vacantly away, sitting opposite them, eating slowly. They had been like this since they got back. He could practically reach out and touch the invisible barrier between them, the one that was easy to ignore throughout the years, but now immovable and solid. A passive guest to the scene, he felt a sick, distant yet familiar ache slide down into his stomach. Because the barrier was growing stronger, and he was becoming numb to it. He didn't doubt the latter fed the former. Especially lately. He grew more and more distant, since the war ended, retreating into himself.

He was more withdrawn than ever. He was not spite and resentment and explosive anger, as he had been in the past when he'd feel isolated. Instead, he ghosted through conversations and classes, he was vacant smiles and stares, he was short replies and absent attention. And his friends let him. They gave him space, soft words of support and quiet company. Every day he sleep-walked through the school, yet entirely awake, body automatic. He took quieter and secretive routes and felt himself smile politely at adoring, insistent fans. And every night he felt himself curling and hollowing into himself, buried deep within his own mind. It was as if part of him died.

The first night back, the trio took in the surrounds. Stale and warm familiarity – fire lit rooms and raucous laughs filling up tall ceilings and the smell of old books, cooked food and rain-soaked long lawns. And the alienating difference – of empty seats and broken groups, tentative smiles and tears, hesitance. Post-War Hogwarts. Less than half of their year had returned after the war. An abundance of Gryffindors, Ravenclaws and Hufflepuffs. Ron was not surprised not many Slytherins returned, he made familiar comments and scoffs. Hermione stopped frowning half-sadly and half-confused after a few days, and sunk into normalcy. Yet Harry felt their absence.

Two weeks in. At breakfast, his gaze shifted to Hermione's left side, where he could get a clear view of the Slytherin table, framing out the couple. There was a noticeable change – only a handful of Slytherins in their year. They huddled, with an air of gang-like camaraderie, leaning into a quiet conversation. Broken off slightly, from the loud bustling and movement of the Hogwarts breakfast scene, yet Harry could see they took comfort in each other. There was one exception.

The blonde was turned away from his gaze, as he had turned away from the scene. Hunched in, shoulders stiff and pulled into himself, head ducked. He was bordering the rest of the group, yet there was a noticeable and inarguable gap that separated him from them. Harry could see his back muscles tightly-drawn and contracting stiffly through his thin school shirt. As he watched, the boy drew a pale hand slowly, controlled, through normally incorruptibly neat hair. It mussed up slightly. A particular stray lock arched upwards, quivered in soft breeze, and shone off white morning light. It danced slightly, and defied gravity by sticking up. Harry's gaze captured it. And, achingly slow, it gave way and bent and leaned into place. A slow-burning lump slid down his throat and sat in Harry's stomach.

He felt a warm hand on his. He jerked, relaxed his gaze and met Hermione's. "What is it?"

Blank, he was entirely blank, and then he jerked his head again. "Nothing. What - what were you saying?" he said.

He felt himself nod and smile at the right points of the light conversation, and took in enough to give short replies. While his body tuned into the interaction, his mind was elsewhere.

Harry was unnerved slightly. A stiff figure shadowed his mind. Where Draco was normally the centre of noise and commotion at the Slytherin table, he was distinctly separate. He could flicker through countless memories, identical scenarios where Malfoy would be leading, effortlessly drawing in attention, his sneer fixed in place. The Slytherins seemed to orbit him. That familiar scene, of Malfoy talking animatedly, or calling snidely across the echoing Hall, or gesturing with loose waving arms and a wild smile, a unreserved barking laugh, always surrounded by appreciative onlookers. That did not exist in the same place with this strung-up, hunched boy.

Harry shadowed his friends that day, in the backseat of a classroom and the floor of a warmly-lit common room. But he couldn't quite shake off that lingering image, an unfamiliar person, but entirely familiar predicament. A burdened, wasted boy, cast alone.


	2. Aware

.

* * *

PART ONE

The Library

* * *

Harry was late. He should have been able to tell immediately, from the dormitory. It was brightly-lit, silent, and empty. But it had taken immeasurable time to pull himself into consciousness – at least, an operable level. He had drifted in-between states, tendrils of sleep clinging to him, lazily and suffocating. The familiar haze – of mad confusion, of certain danger, of a lingering threat beyond reach yet entirely present within and without him – choked him.

Nightmares engulfed him. They were an unfriendly familiar thing. Nowadays, they felt like an absent, yet entirely real threat, broiling him slowly, dragging a blade that no longer existed yet never left over his skin, through his mind. Ever-present. He was his own danger – he lived within the past, brought to life each night. The danger was gone, beyond him. Brought to life by him, of course, as his mind slowly tasted his fears and pains. An omnipresent, non-existent, entirely self-perpetuated thing. Harry had been, unknowingly and then untameably, revolving around and around himself for months. Stuck and spiralling.

The nightmares lingered for hours after; he lived within them, or rather they _became_ without him. He saw, or imagined, the dark shadowy figures, piercing red eyes and blank dead faces cast over Hogwarts' halls and rooms. In morning hours, they seemed as present as the people around him.

Harry ran to Potions, and looped his tie around his neck as he threw upon the dungeon door.

"Sorry, Professor, must have slept in –" he said, flustered, fixing his tie in place. Slughorn looked up briefly, cut off from speaking, and frowned. A classroom of eyes turned to Harry.

"No problem, m'boy. Find a seat," said Slughorn, and continued a long-winded monologue.

Already entirely unfocused, Harry did not keep up. He peered around for a seat, intent on taking his usual one next to Hermione. He paused mid-step; it had been taken by a Ravenclaw, not entirely surprising considering how late he was. There was only one free seat – next to a very familiar blonde head.

Malfoy was the only Slytherin in the class, and the only person sitting alone. A familiar haunting image sparked to the forefront of his mind, a lone figure in the Great Hall. Harry opened and shut his mouth, furrowed his brows, stuck at the dungeon door, as if waiting for something. He remained unmoved. Slughorn paused again, mid-sentence, this time raising his eyebrows. "Harry, is there a problem?" he said.

Harry jolted. "No, sir. Sorry," he said stiffly.

As he approached the back table, Malfoy's gaze swivelled and locked on Harry. It was hard and unreadable. He froze for a moment, matching his gaze. Malfoy tensed when he took a seat.

"Alright, then," continued Slughorn. "Now that you all know the plans for the classes to come, you'll be happy to know you don't have to make these difficult potions on your own. Your permanent partner for this project will be who you're sitting next to. I don't want any switching around; you'll appreciate a more consistent, helpful partnership."

Harry glanced to his left at Malfoy from the corner of his eye. Malfoy didn't acknowledge him, remaining tense.

"All instructions for the first one are on the blackboard. Good luck!" said Slughorn jovially.

The class erupted into movement and talk. Neither Harry nor Malfoy moved – time stood still. Then, abruptly, Malfoy shot up and walked towards the storeroom for ingredients. Harry blinked.

When he returned, arms full, Malfoy went straight to work, slicing, crushing, pouring and measuring briskly. Unsure, Harry watched in silence – and in awe, if he could admit.

"Er, did you want me to –?" he asked hesitantly.

Malfoy seemed to ignore him, silent and efficient. The potion progressed – they remained stuck. Then, in a single movement he slid beetles and a knife to his right and pulled his arm back. Taking the hint, Harry began slicing them up.

By the time he was satisfied – though they were uneven sizes, to be fair – Harry tilted his head, assessing the messy constellation of glittery black shell, before shifting them to his left. In that time, Malfoy had completed another three steps. Malfoy kept at his work, eyes fixated down. Harry waited, counted three beats, and pondering if he was being ignored to infuriate or silence him. Finally, Malfoy looked over and raised an eyebrow at the beetles, apparently dissatisfied. Harry waited for the snide remark.

It didn't come. Malfoy merely did what he could – took the evenly sized ones and measured them. Harry frowned.

If there was one thing Harry felt sure was concrete, that would remain unchanged at Hogwarts, it was feuding between Malfoy and him. If there was something dependable, predictable, it had to be that. Was everything tainted? Had they both been so polluted, irredeemably lost in the castle's rubble? It tugged at something deep and unsettling in him, it shook some ring of comfort he could easily tread, a game he could play, a role he belonged to.

The air of discomfort swallowed him, and his whole body seemed to sigh. He felt empty, holed through. He watched Malfoy work, accepting resignation. He clearly wasn't needed – Malfoy worked quick and capably, the small details and intricacies of potion-making becoming a natural extension of his swift, graceful arm movements.

"Wow, you're good at this," Harry said, before he caught himself.

Malfoy hesitated, hands still, and – allowing once more for Harry to intrude his barred, private space – shifted his eyes to meet his. They were narrowed and suspicious. Razor-like, daring him. Harry didn't look away.

As Harry watched, the hard, closed stare shifted. Something was stirring underneath, behind the wintery grey. As if kicked up, his stormy eyes brewed, swirled like mounding clouds. Once provoked, it couldn't be wrestled down. There was an unexpected deep heaviness, layers upon layers of impulse and repression, bound together. The unbound mess was cut through by something surfacing, like vapour. Something transparent and light. Anticipation. They searched between Harry's, locking him in a direct gaze. His lips twitched.

"Almost believed you, Potter," he said, quietly.

Malfoy released the gaze, before they flitted back to his work. Harry watched a hardness return to his face, a familiar, stoic mask. The picture of stony indifference.

Harry's lips parted, then pressed together. It was only after Malfoy spoke again that he realised he'd been staring openly, unmoving.

"But of course I am." And Malfoy smirked slightly. The snobby note in his voice tugged at the corner of Harry's mouth. It settled something, it was far too familiar. Expected.

Harry did little for the rest of class, his mind elsewhere. Not deviating from a simple yet inexplicable moving image, playing repeatedly. A turbulent pool of cloudy grey. And the effort to contain it. He couldn't focus, no matter what tedious thing he tried to get his hands to do. Absently, Harry wondered why he was obsessively wound up. But even more so, he wondered what was stirring in Malfoy's eyes. Since when had Malfoy affected him this relentlessly?

A smaller voice answered.

He should have known. It showed in many, different ways over the past years. They had always been aware of each other.


	3. Heat

Harry was transfixed on Malfoy's hands.

The air hovering in the still dungeon was getting hotter and hazier. Slughorn had them making a more difficult and excessively hot potion for their next class, so that even the deadened cool air of the dungeon was changing, making Harry sweat. Each cauldron was bubbling furiously was full heat, and people had taken off their robes, wiping their foreheads. Only Slughorn seemed to be enjoying this.

Hazy and feeling feverish, Harry was chopping up Salamander skin into thin strips at an exhaustibly slow pace. He couldn't care less – a fresh bout of reoccurring nightmares had him huddled at the window sill most of the night, watching Thestrals nibble at the moonlit lawn outside with vacant, half-lidded eyes. His fingers were explorative over the Salamander, watching the way the slimy skin glittered slightly. He was hardly aware of what he was doing. He grew more and more sleepy, his features felt blurry and his hands sluggish, weighing down, his arms like clay.

Malfoy, on the other hand, was seemingly unaffected. He worked with proficiency, a small crease between his brows. When Harry had slipped into the seat next to him, he didn't acknowledge him again, staring determinedly at the front of the class. Again, he was bearing most of the work. Neither had said a word.

Blinking repeatedly, Harry felt his gaze slipping, hands still moving on rotation, automatic. His mind was increasingly muddled; his sleep-deprived body sagged. He found himself watching Malfoy peel shells off insects. His fingers worked quick, working their way between the hard, shiny body and soft inner flesh. A long pale finger would creep in, swiftly wriggle in and disappear, then his hand would twitch, tense and relax, and a satisfying crunch followed. Again and again. The pile grew. Harry watched.

His hands were large, fingers long and lean. And so pale, like unfurling pale spiders. As he moved, tight ropey muscle stretched and contracted underneath his thin white skin. Surprisingly muscular, mounds and hollows joined and grew and pulsed, as he moved rhythmically. They were tight-skinned, stretched over distinct masculine muscles and joints, and thin bones that darted and poked through his skin sporadically.

Harry noticed Malfoy had rolled up his white shirt, just below the elbow. Translucent thin hair patterned his wrist, climbing up his forearm, barely visible. Ropes of sparse veins coiled his entire arm, intertwining at his wrists, delicate around the hollows and groves of his inner wrist. The more he moved, the more the veins protruded, rose through the skin, a bloom of soft blue colour, lavender in places. Like tree roots, unearthed. Wiry muscles on his forearm flickered, sinewy stretches of lean muscle tensing and cascading in turn. Harry hadn't noticed muscles move like that, delicate and defined, in a beating rhythm, was surprised at how animalistic it seemed. His skin was so pale it was basically transparent, his life brimming to the open-lidded surface of his being. Spilling over. Harry could see a pulse quivering in his inner wrist, and swallowed hard.

What the fuck? _What the fuck?_

Harry stood up, shot up, in a flustered panic. He almost toppled over the chair. Immediately, he felt wrong and knew he moved too fast, and the blood moved uneasily through his body. His ears pounded, and his vision was a kaleidoscope of colourful spots, he was fading fast. He blinked hard, stumbled, and grabbed hold of the table.

"What the fuck, Potter?" Malfoy was there – his voice was because Harry couldn't see. The heat, dizziness and sudden movement had caught up to him, and he desperately concentrated on not fainting.

"Hm, precisely," he said vaguely, barely loud enough to hear. His ears were ringing and his forehead tingled. He felt absent, not fully aware of his being, present or surrounds.

 _What had just happened?_ He had been lulled into such a state of fixation, as if he were dreaming, as if he were drifting off. As if Malfoy was this immensely complex, interesting thing. This enigmatic thing. Moving so fluidly, brimming, with a life of its own.

Harry opened his eyes, and had a clear vision, and so found his place on his chair again. He was aware of Malfoy watching him, but desperately ignored him. Luckily by this point the room was a mad mix of smoke, heat and frustration no one seemed to have noticed Harry's odd behaviour. He picked up his knife.

"Having more fits and visions, Potter?" said Malfoy, and Harry almost wanted to laugh. Something like that.

He resumed cutting up slimy skin with quivering hands.

"Potter?" Apparently Malfoy liked being ignored as much as Harry did.

He could not even pretend he was cutting well today.

"Seriously, what the fuck is your problem?" Malfoy had given up on class, and was watching Harry adamantly.

Harry thought he'd given up in the long silence that followed, only interrupted by groans of distressed and heat-frustrated students, whistling fire and bubbling cauldrons. Until Malfoy made a sudden movement, and slammed his hand over Harry's work, effectively both butchering the Salamander skin and tightly covering Harry's hand. The sparse, long fingers were tense, muscular palm solid, and Harry's skin stung viciously from the impact. It sparked Harry to urgency. His head snapped up in anger, and met Malfoy's direct gaze unabashedly.

For a second he wanted to hit Malfoy across the face, heat broiled over his shoulders and shivered down his arms. Malfoy was all heat now. A tear of sweat had collected at Malfoy's temple, and dripped slowly down his face. And his eyes. They were curling blackening clouds. Something wild thrashed within them, threatened to break free. A slow heat spread on his cheeks, bloodying his face. Something flickered in Harry's chest, and anger rippled through his body. Malfoy tensed as Harry jerked –

But it was his hand, on Harry's that disabled him, dissipated all the anger. When he tensed, Malfoy's hand had reflexively grabbed Harry's, curled around his on the table in a tight hold. He felt the palm's rough skin, tight mounds of muscle and wiry hollows, hard joints, pressed so tight against his own – _How could his skin be that cold?_

Harry jerked back, snatching back his hand and gaze. "It's hot," said Harry, by way of explanation, and relentlessly ignored Malfoy's silent, unfurling presence. They didn't finish their potion, didn't clean up properly, and were first to leave.


	4. Mad

Harry had wandered, slipping through crowds and hallways, aimlessly. In the days that past, his eyes caught hold of nothing, and places and people blurred into a faceless grey mass. He was weighed down – by a strange mix, a contradiction. Of both becoming part of the mass facelessness, not being able to grab hold of, to recognise himself. And of stark alienation. Stuck out, sharply and awkwardly. He couldn't fit.

He weighed down, treading familiar well-worn paths, before finally surrendering.

He craved isolation. He felt alone, even when surrounded by people, so he went alone. That way, he couldn't ignore the dull heaviness in him, he rolled in it. He couldn't ignore his own insignificance. He felt ornamental, silent and voiceless, part of the backdrop. An empty chair in the Great Hall, corner of a common room couch, faceless brick in a tall echoing hallway.

That way, he couldn't ignore his own significance. He couldn't fit, in a sea of students, in his Hogwarts robes. He was forever a marked man. Marked by his past, his martyrdom, his scar. He stuck out.

He couldn't afford to be misrepresented, not now, it was too heavy. He had been through too much, lost and suffered too much. He represented himself, now, and took comfort in active isolation.

The Hogwarts library was vacuous, still, and gentle. Soft light poured in through windows, Harry found a new appreciation for the library. He could also play the part; he was a studying student. No questions asked. While he sunk into a comfort, a nook, a closeted alcove, bordered window-sill. Framed out.

Mostly he just sat, his hands sometimes doing something, reading or homework, playing with his Snitch, writing letters that wouldn't be sent. His mind calmed.

There was just one, intrusive thing. A common place his mind returned to, playing out rhythms and patterns repeatedly. A cycle, circular, in the days that followed that hot, tempered Potions class.

He didn't stop thinking of Draco Malfoy.

It came out of nowhere. His mind would wander, lightly flitting through small things, everyday details. Shuffling through normal things – to be interrupted. It stained his mind. Out of nowhere, he'd suddenly envision ghostly hands. Translucency pale, almost glowing, thinly veiled. An urgency of movement, muscles and bones, bluish blood and veins, brewing underneath. Tension and release, flicker and strain, contract and flex. Before he was even conscious of what he was thinking. Hands moved inside his mind.

All threads seemed to lead to Malfoy. He'd be absently flickering through something in his mind, anything, and – there it would be. An arched back, shoulders hunched forward and caught in stiffness. Held tight, as a shiver of tension rolled through the mounds and lulls of muscle. Strained under his white shirt, a thin cover.

At first it shocked Harry, struck. Blank. He'd sit still, frozen. His mind was stuck, seemingly suspended, in a stark white blank stillness.

Eventually, after the first few shocks, it just played on a roll, replaying again and again uninvited images. Crept into Harry's hideaway with him. He'd be curled up in an alcove, deep in the rows of tall bookshelves, or stretched out on a window-sill, and in would stumble Malfoy. He was all over his mind.

Was he losing his mind? _Possibly_ , thought Harry. He wouldn't even blame himself, it just made too much sense. If he stepped outside of himself, he could understand if he, the victim, would slip into madness. His senselessness, a reaction of the war. _Finally,_ he thought. People almost expected it, rumoured it, in anticipation. Were unnerved by him; he had seen over the years that glint of fear, people shift away. Potter's mad.

He pondered this vaguely sometimes – only to be interrupted sharply again by a pale, blonde figure. Ghosting his mind.

X

The next Potion's class, Harry stood at a careful distance. Angled away, he paid an undue amount of attention to measuring exact portions. He moved carefully, slowly, so everything he produced was hardly a step away from perfect. But so excessively slow and late. He was narrating instructions and ingredients in his head as he worked. Malfoy did most of the work again.

Where last time was a bundle of nerve, heat and tension, Harry froze Malfoy out. Neither commented on the last class, their brief confrontation. Their only interaction was cold, stiffly passing back and forth ingredients, stepping around the cauldron. It was all done icily.

But all too aware. Unconsciously, Harry began realising his gaze kept slipping, sliding to Malfoy directly. To his movements. Harry's mental narration grew louder, his movements more direct and attentive, working with purpose. But he found his eyes locked, repeatedly, on Malfoy working. Only to sharply drag back his attention, when he became aware. After a while, he grew less attentive, control lessened.

His skin was winter. It looked almost bloodless, lifeless. Malfoy was flicking through his Potions book, stilled on pages, hands splayed wide, and reading with such attentiveness. A slight crease formed between his brows. His translucent exposed arms and neck were stainless; there were barely any marks on his skin. It was like porcelain. Pearly blue veins formed like sparse webs under the thin veil of white skin. Like moth wings, intricate and fragile.

Malfoy was restless, always moving. Seemingly unconsciously. Hands moved around, splayed, or else curled in. They wrapped around possessively over everything, the table, thin pages, various instruments and details on the table. Asserting himself everywhere. They folded over anything in reach, as he read and moved his head, switching his gaze around the table every second, absorbed in his work. Long fingers fluttered the corners of thin pages distractedly as he read instructions. When his hands stilled, they shook slightly. Quivered.

Harry tried to absorb what his own hands were doing. Finely chopping black stringy beans with a knife. He was far too absent. He hardly noticed his breathing had changed.

Malfoy's hand slid slowly down the table and gripped the edge, clutched it lightly. His other rose up, eyes darting across the page, brow furrowed, face absorbed and serious. Harry watched his hand slowly thread through his hair, moving it out of his eyes. It lingered there, and he bit his lower lip gently.

Harry jerked violently. Sharp pain flashed through him. He looked down – his hand was bleeding. A nasty cut on his forefinger was dripping bright blood on the table and beans, his other hand was holding a bloody knife. He stared.

"What –?" Malfoy had dropped his arm and snapped his eyes to Harry's bleeding hand. "What did you do?"

Harry merely raised his hand to look more closely at it. It was now bleeding profusely, and stung. He swallowed.

Malfoy darted forward and moved as if to grab his injured hand, hand reached out. Harry felt a flash of cold skin as if briefly brushed against his, and violently jerked back, stepping of reach.

"Don't – "

Malfoy flicked his gaze up and met Harry's eyes, frowning slightly. "Potter –?" He looked between his eyes briefly. He then suddenly relaxed his face, lips twitched up in a slight sneer. "What the fuck has gotten into you?"

 _Madness,_ Harry thought, _definitely madness._ His whole body was pulsing, flushed. He barely noticed his throbbing hand as his mind raced, incoherent. A brief, terrible thought raced to the forefront, that if Malfoy touched him he could possibly dissolve. _Am I scared of him?_ His hyper vigilance, sharp awareness, reoccurring thoughts and images – was it all fear? Of what?

Malfoy was still watching him, carefully. Harry felt unfocused, entranced, and absently moved away. He addressed his hand, pressing against the blood flow. It was only now he noticed half the class were absent, the rest packing away their stuff and moving towards the door.

Malfoy looked around, and seemed surprised too. He slipped his bag over his shoulder, glanced back at Harry, and walked out. Harry couldn't get his breathing to even out.


	5. Orbit

I was listening to The Enemy - Mumford and Sons while I wrote, it fits it all well

* * *

Harry was going mad.

He filled up spaces and interactions in the same way as always, and motioned through days. Only now he spent most of his time in stale, musty corners of the library, somewhere far in and concealed by rows of shelves and sections. Sunk in, tucked in, by the vast labyrinth. No one could guess any different, he was remarkably, externally unchanged.

But his mind was chaos.

Except there was something familiar about it. A familiar pattern. The way the string of repeated, circular images and thoughts rolled on a loop. Like with so many things in the past – the Deathly Hallows, the Department of Mysteries, Ginny, the Voldemort's pursuit for the Elder Wand, his own deteriorating connected mind to his enemy, his use as a Voldemort's weapon, a thousand theories and obsessions – he was entirely immersed. Soaked through with it, it filled him up. He was obsessive.

Except this was uninvited, he would not consciously dwell on it, sift through it, note details or possibilities. Didn't embrace it, let it unfurl and fill his mind over and over for hours. Instead it intruded. Yet, it still managed to submerge him completely.

He felt infected. Malfoy seemed to turn up everywhere, as if a physical manifestation of his mind, wherever Harry would go. He seemed to sit nearer in lessons, or had a more absolute, concentrated presence. Harry's gaze would slide unconsciously. He brushed up against Harry in Potions to reach for ingredients, through thin shirts. Once after Charms, between classes, Harry weaved through a crowded corridor and ducked into a secluded narrow hallway. He sharply turned the corner and – slammed into a solid body. He looked up and choked, meeting cool grey eyes. A full, real, hard presence – Harry realised he had grabbed Malfoy's forearm to steady himself, and sharply jerked it back, an apology stuck in his throat. Malfoy merely frowned, shifted around him, and slipped around the corner. Harry froze, hands tingling, and long after could still feel his cool, heavy presence take up the narrow space.

At breakfast, Harry could see him at the Slytherin table, in the gap between students, facing him. Malfoy's hand clutches a steaming mug, the other holding up his head, both in constant subtle movement, rearrangement. They'd twitch and shift around him, fumble delicately. He was staring out the great windows, and when his hands stilled they quivered, feather-light. Harry felt his own shake, and uncurled them flat against the wooden table.

He felt throttled. Alone in his quiet library, he wondered why he was scared of Malfoy. So aware. What did he represent? Why did Harry float through days, a vacant body? Why was this the only thing that rooted him, that pervaded him long enough and held him captive? He was hollowed through, hovering blurrily between states of sleep, half-sleep and quiet dull existence.

Malfoy was the only thing that held him. A sharp grey shadow.

X

That was the first weekend they went out. Sometimes they wandered around Hogsmeade, as McGonagall was very lenient with their year, regarding them with softness and pity around the usually sharp, tense eyes.

Ron was chatting excitedly in the common room, as they hovered in a cluster of noise. They were decked out in Muggle clothing. "Neville picked the bar. It's one town over, the closest Muggle town. Bit surprising McGonagall let us, but really, we're old enough to be out of this place."

They had walked out of the school gates to Apparate, and found themselves in a dark street. Street lamps cast glittering light on the rain-soaked tar, igniting the road with electric purples and blues. Muggles hustled around buildings and walked in groups and pairs; talk and laughter lit up the street.

The bar was dark and spacious, more of a pub, with clusters of booths and tables sectioned off, tucked away in warmly-lit corners. A long bar centred the large room, and drew most of the crowd, with a huge range of alcohol in cabinets behind the bustling bartenders. It was a kaleidoscope of bottles – long, lean, fat, angular, with every decorative colour – gleaming from the brightly lit shelves. It was much busier than the Leaky Cauldron, more compact and lively, and with more anonymity.

"Wicked," said Ron, his face lit up as he took it in. "I'll get the first round, shall I?"

The Gryffindor's in their year huddled together in a booth, and by the time the first round of beers were drained they were raucous and light. Neville got the next round, and Dean returned later with a tray of dark honey burnt shots, a glint in his eye.

Soon – after just about every person had come back with a tray – Harry felt warm and fuzzy, laughing easily and tightly pressed in between bodies in his seat. Ron and Hermione had secretly slipped off somewhere, between Parvati's bottle of cheap wine and Seamus' enormous communal jug. Dean talked animatedly with his hands, throwing them through the air, as he recalled a story loudly over the music and chat. Bubbles of frothy gold trickled down Seamus' face as he struggled to compose his face from laughter. Lavender's eyes shone as she talked openly, mouth expressive and loose, cast in warm muted light from the yellow wall lamps. Harry's gaze slid around the room, hazily, his hands tightly clutched around his emptying glass, that kept refilling.

He was suddenly aware that everyone was tightly locked in private conversations, in pairs. Feeling lightly unlocked from the social scene, Harry stood up and weaved between people towards the bar. Once standing, however, he was very aware of how drunk he actually was. Something moved uneasily through his bloodstream, was tickling his insides. His eyes bright, thinly-veiled by something hazy and bubbling. His body moved strangely loose as he walked, and something warm rose like a large bubble inside him, up his stomach and into his throat, expanding, and trickling down his arms and legs. He shook his head lightly, and slid on a bar stool, chuckling to himself.

He realised too late the bartender wanted his attention, eyebrow raised and expectant. "Oh, sorry. A glass of your cheapest red wine," said Harry, and he smiled sheepishly. The bartender looked like she wanted to roll her eyes, he didn't blame her.

He swayed slightly on his seat as he sipped wine, dissociative. He felt distinctly crowded, and when someone knocked into his back, he sloshed his wine slightly over the edge of his glass. He looked round – it was Blaise, who caught his eye and turned snidely away. _A Slytherin_ , Harry thought vaguely, and something moved deep in his mind. Wine, a rich dark plum colour, spread tentatively across his hands.

"Shit," he said, but he could hardly bring himself to care. He drained the glass, feeling ridiculously carefree, and moved to the bathroom. Once he'd dried his hands he turned and made towards the door, but stilled when he saw a flash of movement before the door shut in front of him. White blonde hair, distinctive.

Harry was all movement, and followed, pulling the door open and moving through the tightly packed crowd. He couldn't see above a few heads, but peered around, making himself taller. Nothing – he met a few eyes, narrowed in on blonde heads, but nothing. Feeling desperately hot and swallowed by the crowd, coming down on him, he found the exit and swept into cool air.

It was raining lightly, tickled Harry's face, and he closed his eyes peacefully to it. The crowds had dispersed outside, yet some stragglers walked the street, huddled into their coats. He walked, for something to do, and ducked into a shaded alleyway. There was a lone streetlamp, it cast cool light through the rain on the otherwise blackened, shadowed alley. Harry leant against the cold brick wall, and felt his body sag, calm.

He was suddenly, unconsciously aware of a presence. He felt a trickle, stirring on the back of his neck. Someone near – a figure stood, slightly out of the light, half-cast, further down the alley. They were draped, long and lean, on the wall and held themself stiffly, hunched in. Harry shifted, moved closer. A note of recognition like a match lit in his mind, but it was only until he was next to him, lounged against the wall beside him, that it fully clicked. Malfoy watched him carefully, eyes slightly loose. But as Harry leaned his head back, dropped it against the brick and looked up at nothing, Malfoy moved his eyes away.

They stood in silence for a while, Malfoy puffing delicately on a cigarette, light trails of smoke dancing upwards, swirling vapour. Like memories in a Pensieve.

"Potter." Malfoy said it almost as a question, blankly. Harry noticed a large bottle was almost tucked away behind him, swinging loosely in his hand. Malfoy swung it up delicately, taking medial swallows of perfectly clear liquid. He didn't question aloud why Harry was there.

Harry watched him suck lightly on his cigarette, head tilted up, letting smoke unfurl at the corner of his lips. The sole lamp glimmered off his white hair, iridescently. The liquor seemed to burn him, as he continued to swallow it down, a muscle twitching in his jaw.

"You've grown." The words slipped out before he was aware of forming the thought.

Malfoy's gaze slid and watched him from the corner of his eye. "I mean, you're taller," Harry finished.

This time Malfoy really did shift his gaze to him, searched his face and flicked his gaze downwards, looking him up and down. It made Harry unnecessarily conscious of himself, of his loose maroon jumper and scuffed sneakers.

"Are you drunk?" said Malfoy.

Harry made a noise in his throat. He thought about it. He felt distinctly more sober, in the soft lamplight, cool breeze and light rain kissing his face. But he still felt clouds in his head, the warm rising bubble wrinkle and bloat in his belly, and settling in his throat. "Yeah," said Harry.

"Well, Saint Potter." Malfoy's lips twitched in slight amusement. He looked composed, too pristine, in his black as black clothes.

"Where'd you get that?" he looked at the large bottle Malfoy held loosely.

Malfoy held it up, into the light, and frowned at it as if noticing it for the first time. "You could guess, the Muggles in that bar don't notice much." He gave the smallest smile, more of a smirk, then exhaled loudly and closed his eyes. "Bloody hell," he said in exasperation, almost decidedly. Then he flipped the bottle up and sunk it down his throat. His pale neck strained and contracted as he swallowed, and Harry watched with a slight crease between his brows.

"Why are you here?" Malfoy had his head tilted up, and said it to the sky. If he was drunk he hid it well, compartmentalized under his still face.

Harry looked around, and knew that he meant why Harry was here, in an abandoned alley, leaning with Malfoy. But he merely said vaguely, "Came here with friends."

"Right." There was a slight amusement, smugness to Malfoy's tone. There was a halting, static moment. Then, he made a slight movement and Harry realised he'd held out the bottle to him, it hovered in the untouchable space between them.

Harry rolled his fingers around the base of it, and met Malfoy's curious gaze, half-cast in the muffled light. As if it were a test, Malfoy's grip relaxed and eyes shone.

Almost competitively, Harry took a swig of the liquor. He let it roll around his tongue, swilling it through his mouth, noting its tastelessness yet fullness. It burned fiercely when he swallowed.

Malfoy smiled at him, almost cruelly, pleased. He took the bottle back, raised it to his mouth briefly. It felt as if there was a distinctive and grand shift – but his face evened out, blankly. He flicked his cigarette to the ground, crushing it under his heel.

"Well, it's been fun, Potter," he said in a grey tone, and walked passed him, moving through the shadows, and slipped around the corner.

Harry stood in silence, distinctly alone. He slowly raised his hands, sliding them over his face. In the dark, he smiled against them. _Delirious_ , he thought. He stood there for a while, watching the drizzle interfere with his vision, and lay against the wall. Then he turned the corner, back to the bar in the quiet street, in search of his friends.


	6. Electric

I was listening to Blood Flood - Alt-J while writing, and it was dawn outside

* * *

Harry was surrounded. His classmates, enthused by their last trip had hastily organised another, and in the next week Harry found himself in the same bar, pressed between excitable bodies and facing the bar.

In the week that passed, he had spent more time than ever in the library, hidden away, calmly revelling in solitude. His mind kept slipping back to his exchange with Malfoy in the rain-soaked alleyway, under soft half-cast light. Their odd conversation filtered through with slivering smoke, slight breeze and careful distance.

It followed him around, seemingly unimportant but seemingly intertwined with everything. In Potions, when their cauldron bubbled and smoked, he imagined the potion's gentle smoke curling free from the corner of Malfoy's mouth. Careful of not becoming a great fumbling, clumsy mess again, Harry relaxed his body, the tension in his wrists. At dinner, Harry watched Malfoy immerse himself in a book at the high end of the Slytherin table. He envisioned the wicked gleam from the alleyway in Malfoy's intense scrutiny, eyes darting across the page.

They were perhaps too enthused. His fellow Gryffindors were springing around, pulling each other and laughing wildly with an air of camaraderie. Ron had an arm slung over Hermione as he ordered from the bartender, his voice raised too loud. Dean and Seamus had joined a group of Hufflepuffs, and were perhaps the loudest, most boisterous group in the bar. They were playing a raucous drinking game, all huddling intently round the table.

Harry sipped on rum, and returned Hermione's easy grin, her eyes twinkling. Ron pushed a pot of beer into Harry's hand, slightly sloshing it on him. "Alright, we're playing a game," he said.

Harry merely shrugged lightly, and loitered around the back of the group of Hufflepuffs. He caught on pretty easily; they were playing Truth or Dare. Hufflepuffs, honestly. However they had arrived at a point where all the medial, obligatory dares had been asked and done, and they were up to more inventive, exploitative ones. They watched Dean make out eagerly with Parvati, hands imprisoning her face, while everyone hooted. Hannah Abbott peered around the group, looking for a victim.

"Hermione," she said, noticing the trio shuffle into the group. "Truth or Dare?"

"Dare, I suppose," said Hermione, smiling tentatively.

"I dare you to finish your drink in three seconds."

"That's boring!" cried Seamus, drunkenly. "I've got a better one. Harry." He locked eyes with Harry, a vicious smile growing on his face.

"Yes, Seamus," Harry smiled, amused.

"I dare you to find someone to make out with before I do, before the end of the night. If you lose you have to finish _this_ ," he tapped the communal jug of beer on the table, enormous but half emptied. "In three seconds."

While Harry chuckled softly, Ron roared with laughter and the group laughed appreciatively. "Bloody hell, Seamus. Is this just an excuse for you to jump someone quickly, without looking too eager?" joked Harry.

Seamus rolled his eyes but flushed. He jumped out of his seat, and nudged Harry lightly. "Come on! Let's see what you've got, Potter."

Seamus ran his eyes predatorily around, as if looking for an easy victim in the crowd. Harry peered around the bar absently, looking in his immediate vicinity, an exasperated smile on his face, while the group watched with plastered smiles. Then – Seamus whipped out an arm and pulled a girl from nowhere, spontaneously pulled from the fray, mumbled a quick greeting and engulfed her. Harry looked away with a hand over his grinning mouth, while the table broke down into hysterics. Dean was banging his fists against the table, tears in his eyes, and Hannah keenly passed over the cruel, cruel jug.

Harry clasped both hands around it – it was huge – and looked up briefly, catching several eager eyes, before tossing it back. It hit him all at once, a great rush of bubbling bitter liquid crashing into his throat. He paused briefly, swallowing, then opened his throat, felt it relax, and let the rest slide down in a heap. Three seconds.

There was a brief silence as he lowered the jug, blinking hard, before he felt celebratory claps on the back and heard hoots of surprise and giggles. "I'm just going –" he started, irrevocably drowned by the sudden smash of alcohol hitting his system. It buzzed viciously through his chest, sparked down his arms and legs, and crept fuzzily in his head. "I'm just going to the bar, just a moment."

He walked unsteadily away, feeling entirely swarmed as his system tried to adjust, and leaned heavily over the bar, running a hand through his messy hair. To get a grip on his surrounding, he rubbed his thumb over the grooves of wood repeatedly, and distractedly looked around the long, rectangular bar. Once the bartender tried to get his attention, he shook his head absently and leaned off the bar, walking along it.

When he caught a glimpse of him, he unexpectedly felt as if he expected this, but his stomach still lurched. His damning ghost, shadowing him relentlessly. Malfoy was perched at the bar, opposite him and facing him. He was leaning over it lightly, his hand poised over a crystal glass, tracing the rim distractedly. A man was leaning towards him, almost hovering, his arm lightly holding Malfoy's shoulder and the other with his elbow poised on the bar. As Harry watched, the hovering man spoke in Malfoy's ear. Harry frowned as a light fleeting thought surfaced in his hazy mind, the gesture seemed intimate, private. Malfoy flicked his gaze up once at the man, at his face, and smiled crookedly.

Harry was aware, after the fact, of moving closer to them, his gaze never leaving them as he sifted through people. He watched Malfoy listen to the man, staring intently at his drink, but a light smile tweaking the edges of his mouth. Then, once Harry had caught up to them, standing idly behind them, he could hear the man.

" – just so you know." His voice was soft, suggestively tugging at something lost to Harry, without context. The man bounced off the bar, slid off Malfoy's shoulder and slinked off.

Malfoy's head turned to watch him go, and instead locked eyes with Harry.

Harry was utterly trapped, within the sharp gaze and within a sudden rush of recall. He was reminded of how Malfoy's eyes swirl like building angry storms, how they emit and brew something dark and alive. How something stirs dangerously under the hard slates of grey, waiting for that sharp thing, a provocation, teetering on the edge, waiting to stir up like a hurricane. Both in a vivid, haunting image and now, in the present, as Harry moved closer.

They were static – locked in a silent, timeless battle. Harry hadn't known eyes to be so expressive, so revealing. Betraying of what he'd known to normally be keep tight, secured, and masked.

Until Malfoy's eyes stuttered, and fell on the unoccupied seat next to him, for a sliver of a second.

It's all Harry needs, and he slid in next to him.

In a silent, loud, unfurling, still moment, Harry felt a rise of hysteria at the pure tension, and wanted to laugh and run at an impossible simultaneous moment, and instead, caught up in the moment, leapt out and grabbed a bartender's forearm.

"Whiskey, with ice," he said, too fast. "Please," he added, as the bartender raised an eyebrow.

It clinked in front of him, and he took a tentative sip. The silence pained him, laughed at him, and he shot a glance at Malfoy, who was watching him.

"Classy, Potter." His eyes flicked towards the group of Hufflepuffs, on the other side of the bar, who were still far too boisterous. Harry looked over, and from where they sat could get a clear view.

"Oh, you saw that?" he said.

"How juvenile," said Malfoy, almost playfully.

"Well, what can you do?" said Harry, grinning. He watched Malfoy take a sip of his drink, shaking his head with disapproval.

Harry realised in clarity what was so odd about the scene he had intruded. All this school year he'd seen Malfoy alone, framed out of every scene, on the border or else entirely solitary. Both within, and without, of every image Harry could recall.

"Do you know him?" Words tumbled out again. Malfoy raised an eyebrow, then looked behind Harry where the man had slinked off.

"Oh," said Malfoy, unreadable. Harry imagined he looked taken aback for once. He thought that was the only answer he'd receive, in the silence that followed, before he continued, "One could say so."

Harry didn't look away, as if waiting. Instead, Malfoy momentarily ignored his existence, and pulled out a cigarette from nowhere, lighting it with a brief flash of conjured flame.

"That's rather juvenile, Malfoy," said Harry before he could stop himself, amused. "Can't smoke in here."

Malfoy rolled his eyes, a strangely casual gesture. "Concealment Charms, Potter." When he took a deep drag, his cheeks fluttered slightly, and the smoke float eerily around his mouth, tendrils curling around his pale face. Harry found the whole thing too interesting. Malfoy closed his eyes briefly, then pulled on the cigarette again and sat his head in his palm, chewing his thumb nail.

There was an air of vulnerability about the way he moved. Unsure, tentative movements, hands that skid around his surrounds, his body twitching in succession. Electric licks, tiny muscle ticks and twitches, cascaded throughout his body in momentary intervals, and on his exposed forearm lying on the bar. Like a slow-moving current. He was completely colourless, as if submerged in water, ghostly. But brimming to the surface, veins and muscles and thin skin, all pastel pale and electrically, invigoratively alive. Fleshy, mortal.

It was so _there_ , so present. Right before him; Harry could practically watch him stir, pulse. His gaze slid from Malfoy's throat, to his forearm and was so caught up in how it would feel, whether he could feel the electric, the life, all at the surface, whether he'd sink through, whether he could have, capture it. To experience it. Harry's body pulsed, he could hear his heartbeat in his ears, his mouth was dry. His hands itched, and was so entrapped, entranced in the elusive idea that his arm moved, hands slid forward, to where Malfoy's arm lay resting. His body swarmed in violent apprehension, a blood flood –

He shot it back, with such force it knocked into his glass, the loud ring of it unbalancing, teetering and clinking back into place bringing Harry back into the present with horror. He wasn't scared of Malfoy.

Malfoy's eyes shot like lightning to Harry's, and for a moment they looked raw, knowing. A horrible lump slid down Harry's throat, but Malfoy's face evened out, closed, and he merely frowned questioningly. He could have imagined it, but it hardly mattered for the chaos that roared unbridled in his mind. Uncontained, a loud chorus.

 _Am I attracted to Malfoy?_ The powerful, all-consuming, heavy thing, that swallowed him whole. For a moment it was so impossible and laughable he threw the thought out like a bad taste in his mouth. And then it slowly shifted, against the grain, deadly slow, and clicked in a well-worn and untouched nook. Settled in. It was so blindingly obvious. _I want him_.

He wanted to laugh at himself, hit himself, dart away, hide. He couldn't ignore – now that it was so there, so obvious – what else he wanted. He stared at Malfoy unreservedly.

Malfoy almost looked concerned for a moment, as he searched around Harry's face, seeming to find something to be concerned about. He opened his mouth, to speak, but shut it again. Malfoy speechless. Harry wanted to laugh – at everything. _Insane, this is insane._

But he couldn't ignore Malfoy – had never really been able to – as he stared openly at him now. He wanted to lunge forward, to slowly trace his skin, to say something, to grab him. His whole body beat. Something held him back, a thread, something deep trying to harness him in, and he couldn't. So he sat still, but his mind and body roared on.

"Are –" Malfoy began, and Harry could almost see the silent battle wage under his grey eyes, the effort to contain himself, but something won out. "Are you alright?" Something was wide, open in his gaze, poking through.

 _I don't know_. But no words came out. _No,_ he thought. _Not at all._

He heard them before he saw them, before he felt a warm hand on his shoulder pulling him, slightly angling him away from Malfoy. He caught Malfoy's gaze shift upwards, and harden instantaneously, like stone, before he himself turned. Ron and Hermione were standing there, looking slightly quizzically at the scene they'd walked in on, but otherwise still enwrapped in the light, happy social bubble.

"Hey," said Ron. "We're heading off now. You should see Seamus and that girl over there, thrashing around, they were hardly aware of anyone around them. Dean could even poke his fingers in between their mouths, it was ridiculous –"He continued to babble on obliviously, mouth loose and eyes bright. Hermione was laughing, but looked between Harry and Malfoy, eyes sharp.

Harry managed a forced, light laugh, and glanced back at Malfoy. He was angled away from them now, so he couldn't see his face, sipping delicately. His posture was stiff, but otherwise anonymous, as if he was a stranger enjoying solitude the whole time. Harry moved with his friends, not really seeing any other comfortable, viable option, but glanced back as they were at the exit of the bar. Malfoy was unmoved, unreadable, staring at nothing.


	7. Blur

Bloodstream - Ed Sheeran, too much coffee, alone at the beach

* * *

Harry was mauling at his own lip. He was tucked away, as far back in the Restricted section as he could, as the labyrinth of towering bookshelves would allow. He normally didn't come here, the Restricted section was too still, too shadowed, and stale as if untouched and frozen in time. He could imagine, if he stayed here long enough tucked away, he could become as anonymous and stale and the millions of books, and sink into the shelves. No one could find him here.

It was only here he allowed his mind to open up fully and wield a raucous wildfire.

He was attracted to Draco Malfoy. Overwhelmingly, insanely – without mind or permission. And without consciousness; he wondered how long he'd been held hostage. When the realisation had tumbled in, slamming into his whole being at the bar, it seemed long-standing and riddled deep inside him. He hadn't known, hadn't thought to venture, but it had been there, untouched and unconscious. He felt awkwardly, silently altered. It was as if something had been riddling, burying inside him, to suddenly become aglow and show off deep holes and rings, like an old tree trunk.

That was the first thing he obsessively rolled over in his mind. How long this existed, and it's strange, mindless, overwhelming power.

The second phase came more sourly. It was Malfoy, for fuck's sake. Did he forget, lose his mind? Who he was? What he meant, represented, had done? This was the boy that relentlessly teased him, snidely, cruelly, and in their darkest moments had come to personify everything Harry hated. Was tied to all his cruellest threats and hardest battles. That hadn't changed, couldn't have. It must be Harry who changing it, was fucking up everything, his perception coloured, misplaced, irrational.

As soon as that apparent certainty arrived, a whimsical thought interrupted him. That wasn't exactly true, nothing had remained unchanged. All you expect now in their post-war world was the unexpected. Harry had changed – _apparently enormously_ , he thought – inexplicably and permanently. And Malfoy had too. Harry couldn't deny that, in his mind he watched the pair of them interact, tentatively, civilly. Malfoy's eyes flitted through his mind, borne from Harry's recent memories. A flash of curiosity, of concern, of interest, of humour, coloured the grey. Malfoy seemed to be wrestling with something, could almost break to urgency, something burned and quivered in him. He seemed almost _more_ , not a one-dimensional snob. But Harry knew this, since sixth year, and then the tumultuous year after. _He captivated you then_ , he thought. _You knew he was more._

The third thing he pondered slammed into him, as he was walking a corridor between classes. He halted instantly, frozen, and students bashed into him, skited around him. Malfoy was a boy.

Oh.

Malfoy was a boy. _Oh_.

Right. How on earth had Harry not picked up on that one, colossal detail, which now flooded everything else? Surely that should have shocked him first. But it felt like an afterthought, which now in its urgency, slammed into him like a brick wall.

"Holy hell," he said, to nothing. The strange trickling sensation erupted in his mind, sobering him like a face full of ice water.

Well, shit. He has had to admit to himself, slowly over the years, that he can be oblivious. He accounted for his past behaviour. The amount of times Hermione reminded him. And he knew that he could be dim, that he often acted first and thought later. That he often only came to realisation at crucial points, and only then he saw long pre-existing and sustained things that were blindingly obvious.

But this? It was one thing to be oblivious of the world shifting around you, it was another to not know yourself.

Was he just drunk? Altered, uninhibited, different? _No_ , he thought immediately. Then took a mental step back – why was he so certain? But even now, in a closed alcove so distinctly locked in silence and solitude, Harry felt the want creep through his system. It took only a memory, an image, and desire coursed through him, now familiar and numbing, but hot and dangerous. Perhaps being drunk merely unearthed something, which was already very much there.

It dazzled him for a while, like bright headlights, and didn't find clarity. He was muddled.

X

He had managed to effectively avoid Malfoy all week, desperately, as if his disappearance would take the confusion away with him. Except in Potions, when Slughorn had devised another idea to force students to become more involved.

"A research project! Experimental Potion-making!" said Slughorn enthusiastically. "Essential for any aspiring Potioneer! You'll be spending more time out of class researching, cultivating a heap of information on your designated experiment. So there aren't any formal classes for the time being, but this classroom is always open for you to use, when you get up to it. How exciting!"

 _Ahhhh …_ Harry felt something exasperated, and almost fearful, sigh in him. He thought of all the time he would spend locked up with Malfoy. An unexpected glimmer of excitement tickled his stomach, and he frowned at his body's reaction. He looked sideways at Malfoy, poised artfully on his chair, who returned his gaze almost slyly. As he did, Harry noticed a predominant vein in his neck stretched languidly, slightly raised and disrupting the porcelain.

"Well," said Malfoy, as the class started dispersing, in a dry tone. "I suppose we'll be best buds after this, Potter."

"You wish," said Harry, and then an old memory danced before his mind of his twelve year old self, and he laughed sharply.

As Malfoy stood, he paused and looked down at Harry almost absurdly. He saw something shift under the hard grey mass, as if he remembered too, and his sly grin slid off his face. He looked down at his hands, eyes vacant and lips twitching. He saw a slight heat flush him, swell to the surface, and Harry felt his chest flutter.

"Meet in the library, this evening?" he said, moving off his seat. He wondered if Malfoy's flush was transferable, at his touch, if it could settle him calm or light him aflame.

"It'll finally give you a good enough cover to stalk me," said Malfoy, in a soft teasing voice.

"Sure, Malfoy," he said, calling behind him as he walked off, heart beating fast. "Whatever you want."

X

That evening, Harry was already in the library, his books spread out on a long communal table, when Malfoy slinked out of nowhere.

"What are you doing?" he said, looking down at Harry and frowning.

Harry was suddenly self-conscious; he had his books spread sparsely, in the middle of the loudest, largest and busiest table, and had been leaning back in his seat, rocking back carelessly. "What?" he said.

"It's like a goddamn menagerie here," said Malfoy, disapprovingly. "Come on, let's go somewhere private."

Harry didn't let himself react, drawing the curtains against his words, but found himself moving a little too eagerly, scampering up his stuff and following Malfoy down the intricate web of shelves.

Once satisfied, Malfoy planted them in a narrow hideaway. A small table, barely enough for the two seats, sat against the towering wall under a tall window, lined by ceiling-high shelves. Harry knew it well; he'd spent so many hours here, one of his escapes.

"So." Harry leant against the table tentatively, and looked at Malfoy. It felt they were sharply alone, completely outside of the noise and people. Harry buzzed. He watched Malfoy pause and frown, his lean frame hesitant – before deftly setting up and immersing them in books. They seemed adept at civility now, an unsaid agreement, and handled each other slightly stiffly when they worked. There was a distinct, hard space between them, in their conversation and the rigid way they carried themselves. The setting sun cast long shadows, and Harry watched a pulse quiver in Malfoy's inner wrist under orange light, as he wrote. One particular ropey muscle darted relentlessly, like a heartbeat, under the skin of his pale upper forearm as Malfoy's quill scratched across the page. It was dark by the time Malfoy stood, stiffly and silently leaving.

By the second session together, the next night, Harry felt a slight more accustomed shift. They spread out in the same enclosed nook. He was happy to lean back on his seat, chair against the shelf, and flick and scramble with his Snitch, while he talked Potions and Malfoy annotated down notes, who glared at his inattentiveness sometimes. He doubted he was helping much. Mostly he just watched Malfoy lean over his work, facing away from him, so he could stare openly.

He had an insane urge to grip Malfoy's wide shoulders, frame them, to let his hands tense and flex to match the cascade of movements and shifts running down his back. To spread them flat, wide, against the sinewy stretches of lean muscles, feel them beat and tremble against his skin through his thin shirt. His hands itched.

By their third session, Harry felt they were hardly progressing on their project. Not that he would know – even the name of the potion they were experimenting slipped his mind sometimes. Malfoy pulled off his school jumper in a huff, and slinked out of his stiff, concentrated posture over the desk, rolling his shoulders and standing up.

"It's bloody hot in here," he said, and popped the latch on the window, swinging it open. A lovely, cool breeze tickled Harry's face.

"Sometimes, I suppose because it's really cramped," said Harry, moving closer to the window and peering out at the vast lawns and ominous mountains, leaning back on the shelf. "I love it in here." When he felt eyes on him he looked back, and Malfoy was frowning at him slightly from the opposing bookshelf.

"I spend most of my time in here," said Harry in explanation, unnecessarily.

Malfoy didn't seem to have noticed him continue, now examining his nails. But then, without looking up, he said, "Why?"

Harry watched him and thought. "Because no one else does, I suppose."

Malfoy nodded slowly, unconsciously, at his hands. Harry thought of Malfoy sitting alone at meals, at the bar and during classes, tucked away from the action. He could guess that if anyone would understand that, he would.

They stood in silence for a while, the breeze whistling between them, before Malfoy shifted and flicked his wand. A sealed thermos conjured from thin air, summoned from somewhere Malfoy would know, and a distinctive, attractive smell of bitter coffee floated and spread when he opened it. It seemed like a very odd, private thing to do. When he clasped his hands protectively around it, raising the steam to his face, he looked almost fragile.

"So, why were you that drunk down an alleyway, stealing alcohol from a vagrant loner?" said Malfoy conversationally. He looked over his coffee at Harry, a glint in his eye.

Harry grinned. "I could ask you the same question."

Malfoy exhaled, and moved fluidly to poise an arm against the window and face outside, the corner of his mouth tweaked upwards. "No, you could ask why I was _getting_ drunk down an alleyway like a vagrant loner."

Harry laughed openly. "Alright, you got me." He watched spidery hands wrap and twitch around the coffee, wiry hollows and mounds shifting rapidly in succession. "Just part of the brooding, misunderstood act, slinking into the shadows of the night, was it?"

"Good Lord," said Malfoy, and flicked out a white cigarette, balancing it between his lips. "You make me sound far more dramatic and attractive." He was far more relaxed than Harry had ever seen, his face lit with a pale lilac dusk outside. Harry's pulse bounced.

"Okay, now I know you're definitely not supposed to do that here," Harry said, brows raised as Malfoy neatly conjured a flame, and exhaled a cloud of smoke.

"Thought I was far above common human trivialities and law? Don't try and understand me, Potter," teased Malfoy, shaking his head softly.

"Fine," said Harry, and snatched the thermos from the table with quick reflexes. "Then I'm above it too."

"You're a brute," decided Malfoy, but watched Harry with lidded eyes as he opened it slowly and take a heavy gulp. He held down the splutter as the bitter black coffee burned his throat. Then Harry laughed abruptly and outright, throwing his head back. He was reminiscent of the hours he had spent in closed spaces like this around the library, so relaxed and unwatched, peeled back. He leaned heavily on his elbows against the window-sill, looking out.

"You almost are," Malfoy said from behind him. His voice was soft, distant. "A brute. You're all heat, impulse. On edge. A clumsy, hot mess. Sometimes I think you –"

He had paused abruptly, and Harry spun sharply to meet his gaze. Harry's eyes had widened at his words, they now searched his face, shocked. Malfoy looked surprised for a moment, his face working hard, as if to gather himself.

"— Can barely control yourself," Malfoy finished, barely audible. He hesitated – and there was an awful, beautiful moment of stillness and time stopped to watch the scene – then flicked his cigarette out the window carelessly, wiped his mouth and moved swiftly. He slammed the window closed. The noise awakened it all, too loud for the scene, and something collapsed inwardly, turned the lights on.

"And you're bloody awful at Potions," he said, gathering his stuff swiftly. Before Harry could recollect, Malfoy was gone, swept around the corner, leaving Harry in a still silence.

He stood, unmoving.

 _Fuck_ , he thought. His body was aflame. "Fuck." He was a goner.


	8. Chaos

Lana Del Rey - Honeymoon and balcony singing

* * *

Harry was spending more and more time following Malfoy's lead. He decided when and where they'd meet, and they spent hours swallowed up in reclusive corners of the library, lit by soft sunset and then lamp light as they slipped into night. Harry mostly hovered and loitered, following him as Malfoy worked eagerly.

Malfoy was all phases of the moon. Unseen, in their private alcove. He was sometimes in intense scrutiny, absorbed for hours in concentrated silence, would shush and snap and chastise Harry, and shoot up tall at a discovery, mumbling silent words to himself, or shove aside and lash out at books at failures. Or he was energetic and electric, bouncing around the secluded place, darting off walls and throwing around ideas, talking to the air and twitching. Or he was dampened, dreary and vapid, hunched depressively and half-awake, rubbing his face, and made bitter existential claims with vacant eyes that weren't about anything or made any sense.

He was entirely unpredictable. He was like this ever-changing swirling landscape. And he was slowly becoming any and every interaction Harry had in a day.

Harry orbited in the background, taking instructions and never doing enough, but it hardly mattered. Malfoy was in his own world. He felt distinctly both a part of and a part from the scene; an intruder, sometimes, on Malfoy's universal intensity. Malfoy was more than enough, took up enough space, with his absolute presence. Harry felt like his shadow, watching.

Colours were harsh and cruel on Malfoy. He only seemed to wear black clothes, when not in uniform, looking stately. As if to blend into the background, but it had the opposite effect of bordering him against all else. Or else in papery, thin whites and cold wintery greys, rendering him a shadowy echo of a person. When the sun peaked through the library, the sunset washed him out. Bright orange, hot reds and violets seemed to erase him, leaving him sallow and sickly. Instead, when it slipped into night time, he was more alive. His skin was moon-like, translucently white and pearly, his eyes reflective and twinkling. He glowed against the otherwise dark, sleepy scene. Harry caught himself thinking once that he was beautiful, really. Otherworldly.

For the first time ever, Harry was growing to know Malfoy – the independent intricacies that became him. To experience him, without covers. He could see him, just as a boy.

He drank far too much coffee – always black and strong. There was always a damn cup, mug, thermos, pressed to his body or possessively clasped in his fingers or swaying around with his dynamic arms. There was often a discarded collection at the end of the night with a thousand rings left on the table. He also knew far too much about coffee to make sense, and Harry had no idea how he kept his supply.

His hands constantly shook, in constant motion but when still, they quivered relentlessly and he didn't seem aware of it. He could never sit still, and when he did seem calm his eyes said something different; they were far away and brewing.

He smoked too much. Most of the time unconsciously, moved towards his waiting lips as his eyes skid a page, or mid-sentence as he talked. Harry didn't really know anyone to smoke on habit. Malfoy seemed at ease pulling long drags while they were huddled up in their reclusive space, and clouded the area. Sometimes he did it just to irritate Harry childishly, who watched in disdain as he snidely blew smoke in his face, and sometimes it was when he was irritated, or locked in some raging battle in his head.

Every little thing Malfoy did caught his eye, he noted every detail, and it always seemed so important or intriguing, as if at a later stage he could fit it all together, like a web. And could form an elaborate, accurate sketch of him. Or he just sat back, calm in their privacy, enjoying his comfortable presence.

Harry was eating dinner, sitting opposite Ron and Hermione who were arguing about something lightly, watching the other stir up. Harry watched them vaguely, unfocused, mind elsewhere as he chewed on bread. He was thinking about the night before, the first full moon he'd seen from the library window, and how when it hit Malfoy's skin it almost glittered. He was truly immersed in the idea of diamond skin when a tall body slid in next to him, sitting close and swooping in a full, sudden presence like dense cloud cover.

"Hey," said Malfoy, eyes unfocused slightly and looking at nothing, hands running over the table. "So I finally found that book I was talking about, took the vulture a solid week to understand what I was talking about and she doesn't even leave her enchanted nest of a library. A book is a book, but to her it's mythic, her egg baby, you'd think that –" He was talking abruptly, energetically and almost toneless, as if he'd been having an intent conversation with Harry for an hour and was merely continuing. They hadn't seen each other since the night before. "But I'm definitely onto something now, I can tell, when comparing the roots of the plant, I knew it was about the thickness and not the colour, we were looking at the iridescence, but _no_ – we're going to have to cut it different, it's about the substance. It'll made a world of difference –"

Hermione had stopped talking mid-sentence, mouth still rounding on a word but utterly frozen, and Ron seemed to have gone into paralysis, beef stew dripped from his loose mouth as he stared at Malfoy like Voldemort had just planted himself at the Gryffindor table. Harry was blank as blank. He stared.

But Malfoy was pulling out a silver-encrusted large book, while he talked rapidly, and filtered through pages, only looking up briefly and distractedly for a moment. "Oh, cool, I think forgot to eat today," he said and took the half-eaten bread from Harry's frozen hand, shoving it in his mouth. "You eat too much anyway, you do everything just that little too much, just skit over the goddamn line." He filtered through faded pages with long fingers, eyes skiting rapidly, while his other hand had grabbed Harry's untouched fork and began swallowing down Harry's food. "Like you're testing someone. Like, teetering on a precipice, I can barely deal with it. You know –"

"Malfoy –"

" – you'd think you'd given birth to the phrase playing with fire, I think it's just about summed up your existence –"

"Malfoy!" Harry moved his hand over the book Malfoy was moving through with one hand, making it still. Malfoy flicked up his gaze quizzically, and put down the fork.

"Oh, I can't do tonight in the library" he said, as if that gave sense to the situation, and tried shoving Harry's hand off the book to flip a page. "So I want to run a few things by you, I think if I'm right it'll change the second and fourth steps, and we can chuck out the third completely –"

Harry met his friend's eyes hopelessly, and opened his mouth, lost for words. They were still frozen in time.

"Look, Malfoy," he said very distinctly. "You are a nuisance. I am hungry. Go."

Malfoy mumbled, almost to himself, and Harry caught "caveman," before he condescendingly picked up Harry's shirt sleeve and let his hand smack onto the book so it loosely held it, possessively cast over it. He shot him a very deliberate look full of meaning that Harry knew was meaningless, stood and slinked off, leaving the book.

By now, he was used to Malfoy ramble, locked in a spiel as he went around and around a single infuriating detail, if he was in that frame of mind. He was used to his teasing, strange sense of humour and condescension. But it felt like an intensely private moment, equivalent to if Ron and Hermione were entangled in front of him. Splayed out on the Gryffindor table, when they weren't playing the role of study partners, hidden behind layers of bookshelves and enveloped in complete privacy, it suddenly seemed incredibly senseless. And odd.

"Is he your, um –" Hermione seemed to struggle to pick the word. "Friend, now?"

"Has he gone mad?" said Ron abruptly, breaking out of his stupor.

"Oh, er," Harry began, not sure what to say.

"Maybe eccentric is a better word," said Hermione, still boggled.

"Comfortable, I think he's just more comfortable," said Harry, then frowned. "With me."

Harry realised, out of the comfort of privacy and routine and now faced with it in the stark public, that it was true. It was a quiet, simple truth. Sometime along the way, they'd grown used to each other, comfortable. In some small or grand way.

While he warmed to that friendly thought, he noticed other Gryffindor's in his vicinity had turned toward the scene, wearing identically shocked expressions. A brief collection of images, memories, played in the forefront of Harry's mind, of a million snide jabs, tense confrontations between him and Malfoy in this very room over many years. Always sharp anger and spilling tension, full to the brim with dislike. He cleared his throat slightly, and the students erupted into private whispers.

The next day in the library, Malfoy was chastising Harry about not following up on his supposedly crucial points in his odd spiel at the Gryffindor table, refreshing him on its monumental importance and horrified Harry had done nothing the night before without him. Harry watched with amusement, spread languidly on a chair, far too relaxed and playing with his Snitch. Partly because he knew it would irritate Malfoy, who was strolling up and down the shelves as he gibbered. His quick hands moving endlessly through his hair and loosely through the air. He was smiling fondly at Malfoy, watching the familiar mannerisms, when Malfoy suddenly froze mid-sentence.

He broke off his ramble and shortcut his pacing, turned to face Harry. "Fuck this," he said, decidedly. "We're going somewhere."

Harry raised an eyebrow, puzzled – but Malfoy was already scrambling up his stuff and shoving it in his bag, then without hesitance did the same with Harry's. "Goddamn Snitch," Harry thought he heard him mumble, before he shot around the corner and disappeared.

Harry was still, mind blank for a moment, and blinked. Before moving to tail Malfoy, who was walking brusquely out of the library, down stairs and corridors, turning corners and opening doors abruptly. He didn't glance back once at Harry and relentlessly ignored Harry's questions, and walked out of the castle.

"Are we going to the forest, maybe? Or are we playing Quidditch?" said Harry, struggling to keep up with him. Long after accepting that he was being ignored, he had been questioning Malfoy on an endless roll, commentating their descent and everything they passed. "Are we visiting Hagrid? Are we dramatically running away together?"

Malfoy only addressed his existence once they were at the school gates, and turned to meet Harry square on. He held out his out arm, a familiar worldly gesture, inviting him to side-along Apparate.

Harry ran his hands down his face, wondering if Malfoy's finally cracked it. "We can't just leave, Malfoy," he said, as if to a child.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "McGonagall doesn't notice."

"Of course she does!"

"Well, then she doesn't mind or is turning a blind eye," said Malfoy, jerking his arm further upwards insistently. "Taking pity on the misanthropic ex-villain, or admiring my charismatic chaotic attitude, either one."

"How many times have you done this?" said Harry, noting the implication.

Malfoy merely raised his brows expectantly.

"Fucking hell," sighed Harry. He hesitated for a moment. "You're pulling me in your chaos, right?"

As he took hold of Malfoy's cold forearm and the world immaterialised around them, Malfoy smiled mischievously at him.


	9. Soft

Spanish Sahara - Foals in the dark

* * *

Harry was swarmed in an instantaneous yet sustained moment. They materialised in an alleyway, next to dumpsters between buildings. As they walked into the lighter, wider street Harry noticed it was a cobble-stoned Muggle street. Muggles walked together, enjoying the soft sun and chatting merrily. It seemed like a humble, quiet and approachable scene.

Malfoy had pulled out a cigarette instantly, lighting it and taking a long pull with his head tilted upwards. He did this, as if introductorily, before opening his eyes and looking admiringly at the otherwise plain street. It seemed to mean something to him; he seemed to relax into a well-worn posture. He commemorated with another delicate puff, then tossed it aside and led Harry forwards. His t-shirt matched the unfurling smoke perfectly, a soft grey framed by a black coat. It had been a Friday night, in the library, so they were decked out in casual Muggle clothes.

They found themselves at a warmly-lit, neatly tucked away café. "Enter,' said Malfoy declaratively, holding the door open for Harry. A bell tickled softly as he walked in; they settled at a table by the window, and Malfoy's hands itched with nothing to do or grab. Other than a few figures sitting alone in more shadowed corners, settling after work, the café was calm and sparse. Harry didn't have time to feel out of place, or awkward at the scene, as Malfoy stretched out widely, limbs flailing and ignored his existence. He then let his body curl in, and looked carelessly tired.

When a waitress hovered, he opened his mouth but Harry shot in quickly. "Hold on," he said. "Let me."

Malfoy raised his eyebrows, then shook his head softly in disapproval. "A double espresso for him," said Harry, amused. "Just a latte for me, thank you." Harry noted the comfort of the place – the soft light, the humming waitress, the well-worn wooden tables and floorboards – and sunk back in his seat. He plucked briefly with his worn-out forest green jumper, hanging slightly loosely off him.

"Well, that would make you the first person to endorse my bad habits," said Malfoy, as the drinks slid in front of them. He settled possessively over his, and considered it, before carelessly knocking it back in one movement.

"Isn't that why we're here? Caffeinating?" said Harry.

"Resurrection," said Malfoy, lips tweaking. He then craned his neck, lifting his head and caught the eye of the waitress. "Another holy water, thanks Lee," he called out, and she laughed lightly, moving behind the machine. "Triple this time."

Harry stared openly at Malfoy, who was looking at the window as dusk settled on his face, unseeing. Soft blues and greys painted his inquisitive face.

"I'm stepping in after three, Draco," said Lee, as she settled the coffee down in front of him.

"Good Lord. That's just excessive mothering."

"You're excessive," she said, amused. She lightly pressed her hand to his shoulder as she bounced off.

Harry was still staring intently at Malfoy, who was absently running his thumb over the rim of the coffee glass. He was less agitated now, as he had been in the library, more dampened. "So," said Harry, after a while, as he received no explanation. "You come here often, then?"

Malfoy looked faintly surprised, then looked around and back at Harry. "Oh," he said, and he seemed to hesitate. "I worked around the corner, in the holidays."

"This is a Muggle town."

Malfoy acted as if he didn't hear him, and ordered another coffee. He smiled softly at Lee's teasing comment when she returned, but kept his eyes on the coffee. He sipped on his long black and looked outside distantly. When he spoke, it was to the window, "I worked in a café."

Harry's head slightly jerked back. "That explains so much," he said, but really it explained nothing. He meant about Malfoy's preoccupation with coffee, his knowledge. But it made no sense at all, beyond that.

Malfoy seemed to know this, and smiled almost sadly, and leaned back. He folded his arms across his body, closed off.

Harry opened his mouth again, but Malfoy kept talking, quietly. "After the war, I lived alone."

"Why?" shot out Harry instantly.

"In a flat, up the street," continued Malfoy, acting as if he missed Harry's question. "I still have it, I think."

In a Muggle town? Working in a café? Harry's mind worked fast, but nothing clear came from his muddled thoughts. "Why did you choose here?"

There was a pause, before he finally met Harry's eyes. "Because no one else did," he said. His eyes looked slightly guarded, but something stretched out underneath like a brooding sky. Harry understood with a neat click in his head. He understood the motivation, the solidarity.

"Hey," said a bubbly voice and they looked up at Lee, hovering around them, cleaning up tables. She looked at Malfoy. "Luca said he bumped into you the other night at a bar, what's the deal between you guys?"

Malfoy narrowed his eyes teasingly. "You just want fresh gossip about my life, you prying minx."

Lee laughed joyfully, and stretched out her arms above her head. "You're both too private," she declared, and moved towards a door that seemed to lead to a kitchen. "You're cut off, by the way, no more coffee," she called back loudly.

Something flickered in Harry's mind – before he could consciously wrap his mind around why that felt so significant, what was so telling, he just merely repeated a word. "Luca?"

Malfoy looked round at him, a faint smile still etched on his lips, but became still instantly. It slipped off his face. "Oh," he said. He was hesitant, chewed on his lower lip, before composing himself. He lent back, stretched against the chair, face impassive and turned away.

Harry waited, but nothing. He copied Malfoy's movements.

When Harry looked back, after a while of silence, Malfoy was sucking lightly on a cigarette and had his eyes narrowed. Harry wondered if it was concealed absently - but his mind moved on; there was something distinctly masculine about the way he held his jaw, moving his cigarette up to his lips and down again. It was held tight and something twitched, a quick pulse of a muscle, as he exhaled.

There seemed to be something forming at his lips, lightly held back, as he thought and looked indecisive.

"Why did you come back, to Hogwarts?" he was still looking, unseeing out the window, posed the question to the sky.

It was such a general question; it was such an intensely private question.

"I'm not sure," Harry said, because it was true. "I don't know. I wouldn't know what else I'd do." He thought for a moment. "People are here."

"That's funny," said Malfoy, blankly. "You're always alone."

Harry almost laughed, but then something sprouted in his mind. Malfoy was attentive, of him. _I'm always with you now, actually_ , he thought.

He had a flash of understand in his mind, of the man in the bar leaning over Malfoy, a brief flare of connection lit. He wanted to ask about Luca again.

X

More energetic now, Malfoy pranced down the cobble-stoned street and talked lightly, walking close to Harry. But expending twice the energy as he moved loosely, moving closer and nearer to Harry, swinging his limbs and flexing his hands around. He was playing a game with himself, noting each passing Muggle and conjuring an absurd, fictional story. He claimed philosophically a huddled man needed more calcium in his diet, that an elderly woman had a secret unearthed destiny to become the world's greatest bird watcher.

Malfoy eyed a middle-aged, curvy woman walking down the street. "She's having an affair, can't you see? With her assistant behind her husband's back, her _female_ assistant, it's quite the office scandal. She just thinks she's acting out, a mid-life crisis as it were, from years of sexual repression and resentment. She doesn't know she's gay yet."

Harry, who had been listening in amusement, felt his head snap unwillingly to Malfoy's face like lightning. Something trickled uneasily through his system. But Malfoy, with a confident slow smile, looked forwards as if to search for his next victim. His eyes darted once to Harry, from the corner of his eye, face unchanged.

"This one," he continued, after a tense moment – perhaps Harry imagined it, he wasn't sure, he wasn't sure of anything at that moment. Malfoy eyed a boy around their age. "He's an impulsive wreck. Ever-ready under thin constraints. He boils under the surface like the sun."

Harry frowned slowly.

"Like fire. He approaches strangers in bars and has seizures in front of them, knocking over glasses and cutting his hand," continued Malfoy in a low voice, and Harry saw the corner of his mouth twitch up, his eyes swivel towards him. "A hot mess."

Harry's body began to pound, heat flaring up and hands twitching unsteadily. Alight from his words. He met Malfoy's gaze, and had a sudden impulse to grab him, pull him roughly towards him, against his body. To have, to feel, taste him. Electricity scattered down his arms, his hands waited for permission. He swallowed hard.

Perhaps Malfoy was waiting for Harry to acknowledge his joke, his implication, for he remained quiet as they walked. Harry was shocked into silence with tight fists. But became uneasily aware of himself, that he hadn't said anything, and must be looking sick. Self-consciously, he fiddled with his jumper.

They slipped around a corner, into the shadows of the alleyway. Malfoy turned towards him, but as Harry reached forward to cling on to his arm, to Apparate, he moved back. He looked between Harry's eyes, close in their proximity, with a sly smile.

"Never known you to not rise to the bait, Potter," he said, his tone dancing lightly. "Perhaps I was wrong. You are controlled."

Competitiveness burned him, licked his mind like a flame. And mindlessly, he acted. To prove him wrong – or rather, perfectly right – Harry moved forwards, in a sudden jerk, and clapped a hand to Malfoy's mouth, hard. Then he arched his neck, and smacked his mouth flat against his own hand, held tight over Malfoy's mouth, for a sliver of a moment.

"Don't try and understand me, Malfoy," he said, echoing Malfoy's words. He grinned widely at the boy's expression, was satisfied to see the sly grin had disappeared. It was explicitly in shock, wide eyes and slack mouth. Completely open at the surface and blooming, flushed and frozen.

Harry offered his arm, and Malfoy stared at him blankly. He then stared at Harry's arm, blinked. "You grab it," Harry instructed, grinning wider and enjoying this far too much.

Harry walked happily beside Malfoy across Hogwarts' wide lawns, and felt Malfoy only recover once they'd reached the castle. The stiffness left him, and he complained into the night meaninglessly about Slughorn's antics, rattling on about how he was punishing them cruelly with all this extra work.

Their unsaid agreement to remain civil, accustomed to each other and comfortable, in private had burst once they found themselves in the familiar hallways, a few older students walking around them. Harry was suddenly very aware of their surroundings, the untouchable space between them, and the silence.

"Library, tomorrow midday," said Malfoy, barely looking at him, but rubbing his hands together.

That night, Harry dreamt of Malfoy. A familiar horrid string of nightmares haunted him, of imposing dark shadows and faces, spiralling inside him. But they were now cut through with a pale, lean figure, which darted spontaneously in and interrupted his dreams. He brought his paleness, that cut through the dark forms, the blackness. First it disorientated him, the first night, and he lay for a while after waking, feeling oddly vulnerable. But there became a sort of stability to it. Something in all the mad confusion, and haze of black death that threatened to choke him, that he could cling to. A sort of hope.

It was sort of like that in his waking life too. Even when Malfoy wasn't around him, he lingered, comfortably. It centred Harry, gave him something to grip to that could keep his mind keenly intrigued and floated freely. Instead of revolving around and around himself, lost, he watched a pale figure drift through his mind and coat his skin, welcomed.


	10. Shift

Florence + the Machine - St Jude

* * *

Harry was enwrapped in Malfoy's scent. Willingly, as he stretched out under a window in a far off alcove of the library, letting his body fall utterly loose, affected, back in his seat. They spent most of that Saturday – the day after their careless excursion – in the library working, while heavy rain beat on outside. It trickled down the long windows, drawing patterns of water lines that constantly rearranged in the heavy pour.

Malfoy was in his private phase, blocking out Harry's existence, as he working intently in silence. He mumbled to himself over the heavy rain, utterly still, before he'd shoot up at something in his mental narration, sometimes skid through books or run his fingers through his hair, and settle back into a tight, huddled posture. Harry was pretending to read a book, on the benefits of the counter-clockwise stir for their potion, but his eyes had glazed over long ago.

The window was propped upon slightly, lending a soft swirl of breeze. It mingled with another, kicked up, entirely separate and alive. From a warm body. An intermingle of spices, worn-in and habitable, as if his pulsing body emitted a long-lived smell that enveloped over his thin skin. It reminded Harry of rosemary, an earthy sensation cut underneath by a warmer wooden smell that crept up Harry's legs from the floor. It was heavy; it was crisp and clean, and wore itself on rain-tinged cold breeze, mixed with his décor of coffee and smoke. It trapped Harry in a blissful, sensual haze.

Malfoy stood in a huff, breaking Harry out of his reverie with a sharp shake of the head. He was hastily shoving everything on the table into his bag, face concentrated in intense thought, as he carried his work out of the book and onto his face. As he moved to leave, Harry opened his mouth mindlessly.

"Are you coming out tonight?" Malfoy teetered on his feet, half-framed out by a bookshelf, out of their privacy. He hesitated, before casting Harry a sideways look, who had jolted out of his casual sprawl.

"Are you going to assault me again, if I don't?" he said in a quiet voice, and Harry felt sharp recall of memory, of his hand over Malfoy's mouth. He felt a jolt from his stomach from the proximity of the image; Malfoy's very much alive body a second away, the shock on his face.

Malfoy's lips tweaked, amused. If he found Harry's question odd, uninvited, it didn't show on his composed face. Then his brow furrowed, and he grabbed a book from his bag and peered at it.

"Oh, right," he said, and passed it to Harry. "I'm stealing from the library." He then fell into a quick authoritative spiel, as if rehearsed, about what Harry had to do before they met next, pointing repeatedly at the book. Before straightening and flicking his hair back.

Harry shook his head at him with a light smile. "You're a maniac," he said as he stretched back. "But you're coming?"

Malfoy faked offense, and turned away. "And I feel sorry for the poor dame that had to deal with your violent fuss," he said, rearranging his bag. "But, well. I'll be the brooding man at the bar." And he slipped around the corner, disappearing.

Harry smiled openly, alone. Warmth spread in his midsection, light and fluttering. _I'm fucked_ , he thought. He went still, thinking. Then he chuckled to the bookshelves.

That night the Gryffindor's led a night out to the same Muggle bar with their whole year. The word had spread throughout the week, and huddles of people chatting excitedly, planning something raucous and full-fledged. Their year, Harry had decided with interest, was blurriest with all four houses mixing more and more openly. A gradual shift, but now unmistakable. It was a foreign and friendly thought.

Gryffindors passed around Firewhiskey in the now abandoned common room, and Harry felt the warm burn slide down his throat. He tried immersing himself in the merry conversation, tried laughing at Dean who was toppling around, at Parvati's long spluttering coughing fit as she choked down the liquor. But a single figure kept propping up in his blurry, alcohol-softened mind.

At the bar, Harry sat between excitable bodies at their now usual booth. It was so busy now that people spilled out of the booth, and a table had been moved to accommodate. He watched their drinking game passively, a light smile on his face. Seamus and Dean were at the forefront, whisking in Ravenclaws, Hufflepuffs, and even Pansy and Blaise, who hovered in the backdrop with mixed expressions of amusement and disapproval. Some people were laughing, half-exasperated at the juvenile game, some leaned eagerly and giggled, some hesitated around the edges.

When a bottle spun, people from all houses leaned together, and shared a quick awkward peck amid giggles and laughs. Until Pansy spun, and once it landed on Lavender swung forwards and locked her face between her hands, enveloping her in an urgent, open-mouthed kiss. Harry roared with laughter and he wasn't the only one, but most looked uncertain and smiled tentatively, and Ron gaped. When Pansy lent back finally, satisfied, wickedness gleamed in her eyes. Lavender looked utterly dumb-founded. From then, there was a suggestive upswing, as people became more confident and daring.

At his turn, Harry swung the bottle and sighed as it landed on Hermione. He smiled at her in amusement, and she laughed lightly, moving forwards. Ron was saying something loudly in the background in fake, exaggerated horror, drowned out by the noise. Harry lightly grabbed Hermione's chin, angling it towards his face, and leaned down. He planted a swift kiss on her smile, his lips closed and briefly felt the groves of her lips against his. When he moved back in the next second, he laughed and they smiled at each other briefly, unaffected by the loud raucous around them. People were much more affected, hooting and squeaking. But as Harry settled in his seat, he felt only a slight amusement.

He was distinctly more sober than most of the people there, and more than when he'd been in this bar twice before. The only other involvement he had was when Blaise finally joined the fray, tentatively twirling the bottle with a proud flick of his wrist. It landed on Harry, and as people roared with laughter around him, he felt something squirm uncomfortably in his stomach. He swallowed and faced Blaise, who looked horrified for a moment and then drew himself up, smugly leering at Harry.

"Come on, Harry!" said Seamus, and he realised he was frozen, unmoving in his seat.

He moved mechanically over, shifting sideways in his seat towards Blaise, who was weaving between people and walking over to Harry with a smug smile. Harry tried composing his face into careless exasperation. Blaise leaned down and grabbed his t-shirt, curling his fingers at Harry's chest and pulling at the fabric so Harry angled off his seat. Half-standing, Blaise met him halfway and pressed his lips to Harry's hard, and Harry froze. There was almost something aggressive about it, as lips pressed unmoving against his, for a sliver of a moment before they moved off. Harry felt choked, in slight shock. But something, unasked, flared in his belly, heat skating downwards. It was both entirely surprising, and uncomfortably familiar. Until he opened his eyes, and saw who it was.

Blaise didn't meet his eyes as he stalked off. "Cute," he shot behind him, sarcastically. "I'll buy you a drink sometime, Scarhead." Pansy laughed wickedly, settled an arm on his shoulder, and Blaise craned his head around. "Malfoy, did you see that?" he said in a snide tease.

Harry jerked, mimicking Blaise as he swivelled his gaze around the crowd. A blonde figure had emerged, and Harry could only see him in small snippets as he weaved through the crowd, passing by.

"Hilarious, Blaise," called Malfoy lazily, attention diverted. But Harry saw, in a fracture between people, his gaze swivel from the corner of his eye towards the group once, at Harry. Their eyes didn't meet, it instead cast over Harry's chest, his general vicinity, before moving back, and he disappeared in the folds of the crowd. But it lingered on Harry's skin, the sideways look. An invitation.

Harry looked back, tentative on his seat as he fought the urge to tail Malfoy. Hermione caught his eye, and he realised she had been watching him quizzically. It pulled him, sharply, to the present and he absently became part of the sociable scene again. But something stuck out, disjointed, in his mind and he fiddled endlessly with his hands and feet.

In the energetic blur of the game, Harry felt his gaze wander, flicker around and eventually just blatantly searching. At one point, a little while later it travelled, and sharply caught a pair staring back direct at him. A familiar grey stare, blatant and curious from the bar, before lost in the crowd. Harry couldn't find him again in the time that passed, and pretty soon people became bored of the drinking game and had dissolved into smaller groups. He watched his classmates mingle openly with people from other houses, laughing drunkenly and intimately about the night. He frowned into his drink, mind vacant and dissociate. Until –

He felt a presence; hair stood up on the back of his neck, something dripped like cold water down his spine. A low voice spoke in his ear.

"You need a drink." It was gravelly, quiet and slow. Distinctive. Harry whipped his head back, and saw white blonde hair dissolve into the crowd. It wasn't a question or command, more a statement of fact, left to hover in his ear.

He felt himself move automatically, standing slowly. No one around him seemed to have noticed anything, but there felt a momentous shift in the landscape as Harry dropped pretence, and let himself be pulled in. The magnetic centre shifted; he gave in, and followed.


	11. Quiver

Italian coffee, Young God – Halsey, rosemary oil and I slept walked

* * *

Harry found him alone at the bar. It was obvious the moment he saw him. Malfoy was blind drunk. Turned against the crowd and hunched forward on a stool, he was swaying carelessly, moving slow and messily. Smiling like liquid at nothing. Blurry and loose at the surface, toppling over.

His gaze caressed Harry and slipped around blurrily. He smiled more openly than Harry had seen. "What's your poison, Potter?" he said, and threw out an arm carelessly in the air, beckoning him in.

"No," Malfoy said abruptly, holding up an unsteady hand to silence him. Harry, who had opened his mouth, closed it and took a seat. "Hold on. Let me." His smile lit up Harry's insides was almost suggestive; he echoed Harry's words at the cafe.

"Something warm please, set it on fire if you have to," he said to a bartender, who looked uneasily back at him. Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Nay? Something that's fiery then, for my fiery friend here."

"How drunk are you, Malfoy?" said Harry, watching him slide around and draw sloppy fingers through his hair.

Malfoy flexed and unfurled his hands. "Drunk's just a word, I don't quite understand your question. I'm intoxicated, affected, sure. But I always am. But I'm free, if that's what you mean, which is rare."

Harry stared at him, blinked.

Malfoy merely watched his colourless liquor swirl in his glass as he tipped it around dangerously. Harry's mind brought up a series of images, a cluster of coffee and cigarettes and liquor, and he frowned at them. He guessed Malfoy was right in a way – he was always affected. Malfoy wiped his mouth slowly, before turning to Harry.

"Must say I'm impressed, Potter," said Malfoy, smiling slowly. "Back there. That was less juvenile."

His gaze slipped over to the occupied booth, and Harry understood with a swoop in his stomach.

Malfoy was stretched over the bar, almost sleepily, teetering off the edge of his seat. "Doubt it would impress your admirers, though," he said quietly, looking at nothing. "Your poor dame."

"There's no dame," Harry blurted mindlessly. Then hesitated, embarrassed. The bartender plonked a drink in front of him. It was a warm brown coloured liquor, not quite fire but Harry had to give it to him. It sort of fit the eccentric brief. "I mean, I don't have anyone dealing with me."

For the first time that night, Malfoy looked at him and seemed to actually focus, directly on his eyes. He raised an eyebrow. A small silence fell between them. There was a decidedly tense moment, and Harry sipped tentatively at his drink, the slow slide of liquor burning his otherwise sober throat.

"Is that so?" Malfoy said finally, almost disbelieving.

"Ginny and I aren't together," said Harry. "If that's what you mean."

Malfoy nodded slowly at his drink and Harry couldn't place how present or awake he was. Just as he was thinking this, Malfoy perked up with a jolt of energy, and his eyes shone innocently at Harry. Electricity crackled in his eyes.

"We are doing shots."

It was probably a bad idea. No, it definitely was. But Harry, so enraptured in Malfoy's open expression as he looked eagerly between Harry's eyes, was lost. He found himself laughing and ordered for them. Malfoy watched him closely, commentating on his every action airily and confiding with an invisible non-existent person, as Harry threw back a shot and stuffed a lemon in his mouth with muffled laughter. Ignoring Malfoy, who was now vocally disapproving his sloppy handling of the alcohol to again no one in particular, Harry shook out his body and felt warm. Something slipped and tingled through his bloodstream, twinkling his eyes. He passed Malfoy his and held up a salt shaker, blindly reaching out and pulling Malfoy's lively hand towards his face.

Malfoy frowned. "You licked my hand," he said blankly. Harry then coated it with salt.

"Does that count as abuse?" said Harry, and pat down the salt unnecessarily.

"I don't know," said Malfoy. "I don't know," he said more vaguely to no one. "You're not how I imagined you to be."

Malfoy blinked, at his own words, and in swift motions moved his salted hand to his mouth, and then knocked back the shot.

"How you imagined me? We've known each other for years," said Harry, as Malfoy's face pinched at the sour lemon in his mouth.

"Another, please," he said carelessly, and fiddled sloppily with a cigarette. Eyes closed, he skated his hands over the bar surface for a drink he didn't have. Harry indulged, and ordered more to suspend the irresistible moment.

"You know," said Malfoy, after a moment, exhaling smoke. "The martyr. And all that entails."

Harry thought, frowning slightly. It was familiar, being categorical – the hero, the saviour, the freak, the chosen. He was beyond done with it. But he watched Malfoy, never knowing if he was serious or mocking. "The misanthrope," he said with a slight smile. "That's you, right? What are we, archetypes? Categories?"

"Of course," said Malfoy, closing his eyes and smiling, with his chin resting on his hand that loosely held his cigarette. "That's what it is, isn't it? Why we're here."

Harry didn't know if he meant at the bar at that moment, or why they were alive and existed at all. Or rather why they were here, together, in each other's company yet again. He suspected the latter.

"But beyond that, I mean," said Malfoy, and then opened his eyes and peered at Harry. "You're …"

He let it trail off, unsaid, watching him. Harry had a feeling he could fill in the blank, as he looked back at him. _More_. You're more. Just as Malfoy was, just as Harry had been realising.

Because they weren't just archetypes, or just representative of struggles and duties larger than them. Harry watched the boy before him, buzzing with life and movement, tousled by heaviness and energy, with eyes that could burn, and knew that. And so was Harry. He suspected he had been fighting for this, pushing towards it, all year as he retreats into solitude, trying to forge his own path. Even now, sitting next to Malfoy as no one would expect. Freedom, from all constraint.

Harry's mind drifted in a swarm and his body was floating. He disregarded his drink and moved to Malfoy first. This time, he looked down at Malfoy's hand briefly, at his bleach white skin, a thin veil over long delicate fingers, the distinctive mounds on his large palm. Before dragging his tongue tentatively over a hollow in his wrist, along a vein. He hovered slightly; a quiver of breaths probed the skin. Harry felt a thudding pulse in his own neck, dart over his collarbones. Only once he had sprinkled salt there, looked over and handled the shot glass, passing it over slowly, did he look up and meet Malfoy's eyes. He was quite still and watching Harry, a small crease formed between his brows, with glassy eyes. His lips were parted as he seemed to fail to articulate words, caught at his teeth.

Harry was later pushing Malfoy's creeping or flailing hands away from glasses and other people's glasses, as he shifted around his seat and kept making to stand up, doing everything at once. Harry declared that he was cut off. It was due time – Malfoy couldn't keep a steady gaze or sit still, was toppling over surfaces and his words. His hands hadn't lost their quiver, Harry had noticed fondly, but they were rather sluggish and slower. They crept around the wooden bar, a cigarette dangling dangerously.

Harry was just thinking about how to get Malfoy to his friends so he could go to bed, when Malfoy leaned against him heavily and almost toppled over. Harry stood up instantly, steadying Malfoy who looked up in his vicinity and blinked drunkenly. Harry craned his head around the area to look for his fellow Slytherins. "Come on," he said, and draped an arm around Malfoy's waist to prop him up.

"Lord almighty, I'm being kidnapped," drawled Malfoy, and stumbled slightly away from Harry, who roped him back in and secured him tightly against him.

"Sure, if that's what you want," said Harry distractedly, trying to keep Malfoy engaged and still peering around the dimly-lit bar.

Malfoy was leaning down in a slump against him, his head ducked and his weight heavy. "Well, that's rather kinky, Potter," said Malfoy into Harry's shirt. Harry choked and made a throaty sound, and felt Malfoy's face tilt upwards. He peered down, and was trapped in Malfoy's bright gaze. "I want to ask you something," Malfoy said in a low, bleary mumble.

Far too aware of their proximity, and of his heart pounding, Harry cleared his throat. "Maybe you shouldn't."

But Malfoy gave him a sly smile and then gathered himself abruptly, straightening and leaning off Harry. Except he overreached, and toppled over, arms flown behind him so he fell backwards against the bar. Then he beamed and, emboldened and out of Harry's reach, he reached back and swept up his discarded drink. "Hello, freedom," he addressed it.

Harry lent forward instinctually. "Stop, Malfoy. You're completely fucked!" Malfoy raised the drink to his lips and paused, eyes glinting mischievously. He considered Harry, then stretched out an arm and caught Harry's shirt, and tugged him forwards.

"Wha –?"

Close enough to smell him, that damn infuriating, blissful scent, Harry couldn't think straight. The heaviness and depth to it, of spice and earthiness and smoke and liquor, dizzied him. All he could see was Malfoy's grey eyes.

Malfoy watched him with a wicked gleam and blurry edges. "Make me, brute," he said, then lowered his voice. "I want to know."

"What?" said Harry in a strangled voice.

His smile grew, regarding him carelessly. "Have you kissed a boy before?"

Harry made an indistinguishable noise, and jolted involuntarily. Malfoy's drink upturned between them and soaked through Malfoy's shirt, down his whole front and spreading.

"Oh, look, I'm raining," he said, unaffected. Harry tried to say something, tried to not watch Malfoy's white shirt turn transparent, and failed at both for a moment before jerking out of Malfoy's grip.

"We're finding your friends," said Harry. Malfoy didn't look present, far too unaware, but pulled Harry sloppily against him and mumbling indistinctly. Harry ignored the heat shimmers running over his limbs. "Where would Blaise and Pansy be?" said Harry, shifting Malfoy's weight and looking around, but growing an uneasy feeling they had already left. He gripped Malfoy hard and shuffled them through the crowd, towards the exit.

"No," Malfoy mumbled, shaking his head drunkenly and leaning into Harry. "I don't want them."

"You're going home, Malfoy," said Harry in exasperation, hauling him out the door. They emerged into the dark night, staggering slightly. Electric blues and purples painted the road, and Malfoy's hair gleamed against the otherwise blackened scene. It was only them and a cool breeze that disturbed the quiet, abandoned street.

Malfoy stood upright for a moment, his bleary eyes caressing the street. Harry shifted around him, searching his face. But then Malfoy buckled slightly, unsteady on his feet, and Harry reached out. "Fucking hell," he said, helping Malfoy lean heavily against a brick wall and facing him. "Why did you get this drunk?"

Malfoy was swaying with half-lidded eyes cast at nothing, slipping absently, his body resigned. He seemed to ignore Harry entirely, who felt distinctly framed out of the moment, an observer. Until Malfoy faltered, his body staggering. He felt hands, framing him, as Malfoy had instinctually gripped him for balance and tugged him against him slightly.

Harry's body thrilled – little electric ticks surged from where Malfoy's hands splayed protectively on his hips, and he felt himself move into his hold. Malfoy's whole body seemed to sigh slightly, release, and he resigned into Harry. "Come with me," he mumbled into Harry's collarbone.

"What?" Harry jerked his head back. Malfoy was buried against him, his damn shirt still soaking wet and brushed up cold against him briefly. He murmured indistinguishably. Harry unthinkably moved his light hair to peer down at his face.

"17 Bristles Lane," he heard mumbled, lips moving slowly.

Harry frowned. He could ask what that meant, where it would lead, why it mattered. But there was this burning flare in his stomach that dangerously trembled downwards, there was a soft and needling concern and fondness for him, and an excitable stirring in his chest. That teased him and flirted with his hazy mind. So he merely tightened his hold on Malfoy, and Apparated.


	12. Spill

chaotic movies at dawn, Coming Down - Halsey

* * *

They materialised in a near-black room. Instantly, Malfoy let Harry bear his weight as his body sagged into him. Harry was pushed backwards, but gripped hisupper arms tight.

"Where are we, Malfoy?" he said.

"You didn't answer my question," said Malfoy distractedly into Harry's shirt.

"So you're going to ignore mine?"

Malfoy sighed. "You're a petty Potter." Then he stepped away with conviction. Harry heard him stumble around, swearing crudely, before the light came on.

They were standing in the middle of a clean, small flat. It was stark white, with little furniture and little charm. Malfoy looked bleary and half-lidded, as if his face was blurred slightly, with his hair in his eyes. He still stumbled everywhere, and murmured with an undercurrent of electricity that coated him. Fingers rolling endlessly as if playing piano, threading through his hair. Twitches and pulses, unfurling and curling, down his back and arms. His usual restlessness.

"Nice place you've got here," said Malfoy as he walked around voyeuristically. "It suits your hollow, sparsely furnished soul." He threw out his arms as he staggered around the place, and managed to wobbly hop up on the kitchen counter, squinting slightly at the light.

"So this is your flat, then," said Harry. It had an incredibly odd combination of looking both so pristine and so worn-in. There was a single couch pushed against the wall with threads of tobacco almost woven into the worn-out fabric. A wooden coffee table was endlessly ringed with cup lines, tears of dark liquid and flecks of ash. An empty wine bottle sat on it alone. The floors and walls were completely bare and clean. Every surface was powdered in ground coffee. The one room had the small, white, clean kitchen and sitting room, and an expansive window which covered one wall. It led to a terrace through the windowed wall, with a greenhouse breadth of dead plants and ceramic pots. The wall adjacent to the couch was lined with book stacks pressed together, lining the floor from the window, past the kitchen and down a darkened hallway that lead to a big, stain-glassed door. The stacks of books were all different levels, some reached Harry's hip and some were spread carelessly on the floor, unrolling into the large room and dangerously peppered in the hallway. It was an impossible range; Harry saw many papery, yellowing old books and virginal new ones and thick encyclopaedias and sole sheets, ripped and vacant. The only real evidence that someone alive actually lived here was the skins of fruit, which lay on surfaces partially dried in discarded bundles, stray mugs and glasses, and books that lay forgotten on their faces or heavily dog-eared just about everywhere.

It was the strangest mixture of chaos and refined. It smelt like coffee, unlit tobacco, orange skin, old paper, and Malfoy.

Harry felt distinctly awkward, as he hovered around the place. It was like trespassing an intimate scene. Right now the wall-window showered the room in night, with a scatter of stars winking at them. Malfoy seemed to be watching him. When he caught his eye, Malfoy's eyebrow perked up, challengingly.

"You have a thing against ash trays and coasters," said Harry. "And your books are hazardous."

Malfoy slipped off the counter and was barely able to find his feet. "Isn't it endearing?" He got to work in the kitchen, making an absolute mess of the bench, floor and himself as he ground coffee. One kitchen bench was taken up entirely by bottles of all colours and sizes, most half-empty, primarily wine and white liquor. Then, Malfoy stopped grinding and looked down at himself.

"I seem to be dripping wet," he said, and deftly started shivering. He thought about this, and then kept grinding.

"Malfoy, you've got to be freezing," said Harry, moving into the kitchen. "Take care of yourself."

"You do it," he said vaguely. He didn't turn away from the coffee, but a violent shudder ran down his back.

Harry hesitated, watching Malfoy work. He held himself vulnerably, and looked open and sort of fragile, like his moth wing skin. Right at the surface. But after a moment, Harry moved forward and wrapped his hand around Malfoy's wrist, tugging him back. Malfoy grabbed a handful of ground coffee as he turned, and it ran like clotted sand in his hands. He smeared some on Harry's bare upper arm.

"Where's your bedroom?" said Harry.

"Are you taking advantage of me?" said Malfoy, swaying slightly. He trickled coffee dust on the back of Harry's neck, and it stung there. "Or just not one for subtlety?"

Harry led Malfoy down the hallway and clenched his jaw, and took slow breaths. He opened one of two doors, and found himself in a small, shadowed bedroom. "Get changed, I'll wait out here."

"Well, this is just adorable, Potter," he heard as he shut the door on Malfoy. Alone in the hallway, Harry closed his eyes briefly, and felt his body work hard through, in and around him. Flush, quivering, shuttered breathing. Painfully aware of his heartbeat in his throat and his groin. _Hot mess_. He felt a disorientated laugh in his throat, until he reacted to Malfoy's low gravelly voice in his head. He gripped his hair and breathed for a while. He wanted to slide into the floor and disappear, he wanted to open the door and find his damn ghost there, so solid now.

He waited for a while in the shadows, too long, and Malfoy didn't come out. _He's probably fallen asleep_ , he thought. He hesitated, then opened the door and went in.

Malfoy was lying on the bed remarkably unchanged, half-cast in shadow. And literally not changed, as he wore the same fucking wet and now translucent shirt.

Harry sighed. "What are you doing?" At his voice, Malfoy shifted and rolled so he could see him.

"Hey," he said, and smiled openly at him. "Sorry. I think I forgot you were here for a minute."

Harry frowned, and thought about just turning out of the room and deeming him a lost cause. But he was still watching Malfoy smile, as if Harry was the greatest surprise that could materialise in his doorway, something tugged at his chest.

"Come on," he said, and held out a hand. Malfoy grabbed it eagerly and swayed himself up, before blinking hard and shaking his head. Once standing in front of him, he raised his arms high above him, grinning at Harry who looked quizzically back.

 _Oh_. "You can dress yourself, you mop. Here," he swatted up a discarded t-shirt from the ground and held it out. Before Malfoy addressed it, he had hastily grabbed at the end of his shirt, and sloppily tugged it up, caught on his elbows, and threw it off his head in a masculine furl of his limbs, revealing a vast expanse of pale skin. Harry watched in a speechless blur. He blinked, gathering the last dregs of composure he could salvage. But no, his body beat in one violent red storm.

But then –

Something shot him in the chest. He looked at Malfoy explicitly, eyes coating him heavily and intently. Scars covered his chest. Long and faded scars, a mix-match of smooth porcelain and rippled skin. Pink and pale variation of many shades and depth, disfiguring and discolouring. Harry felt carved through, hollowed out, and horror filled him.

Malfoy's smile was gone, and he looked blatantly surprised, until something shifted. "I forgot."

Harry searched his eyes, desperately, and when something dark and terrible began to brew in the grey he slowly reached his hand out. Intent on touching his damage.

"Don't –" Malfoy darted back, out of reach. Under the blurriness of his eyes, there was something truly terrifying, dark and wild. "Don't."

But Harry stepped forward, hand reaching out again and Malfoy clamped down on it hard with his own. "Don't," he said, a blunt command. "Don't touch me."

Harry just looked at him, something threatening to choke him as it lingered, a thick unmoving black sludge in his throat.

"I –" his voice shuddered. "Malfoy –"

Malfoy watched him, face hard. Then he backed Harry, moving with drunk haste, back to the wall behind him, and slammed his hand above his head, his own covering it in a hard grip. He looked testily between Harry's eyes, leering over him, tension spilling like fumes. Malfoy was all heat and blur.

His face closed over at something he caught in Harry's open expression. "Don't you dare fucking pity me." He spat it out, a low growl.

Harry was frozen, breathless. Trickles, of electricity and fear, ran down his spine and Malfoy was everywhere. "I don't pity," he begun, but he didn't know what he wanted to say. His mind was cold terror.

The stormy eyes raged as they entrapped Harry, searching him. "No?" Malfoy frowned and let his hand free. "There's something there, at your edge."

He should have been feeling embarrassed, suffocated. But the scars felt as much his as Malfoy's. They were an ominous presence in the tight space between them, owned by them, like a shared secret. Harry wanted to reach out again, feel them.

Malfoy was still eyeing him carefully, so he let it slip out. "Fear." It was almost a whisper, floated on the air. Harry thought, uncertain, and swallowed. "Of myself."

Malfoy stared. But then he lurched forwards again with his arm. A cruel smirk tugged at his lips as he pointed at him, hand grazing Harry's chin and then settling there. "I know that," he said, eyes gleaming. "I can see that. All the time." His hand almost gripped him, hanging on and keeping him there. "In everything. You're constrained. On edge. As if you don't want to slip, spill over, give in."

He sounded accusatory, even mean, with a blurry creeping smile. Harry just stared, trapped and docile. Malfoy's thumb slipped messily, over his skin, and hovered over his lips.

"But you can't manage it," he said. Harry felt his lips quiver slightly as he had his bottom lip trapped between fingers, and tugged gently.

"You burn," Malfoy said, something dangerous in his darkened eyes. "Under the surface."

"Malfoy –" Harry felt weak, swimming. His lips moved against Malfoy's fingers, encased.

Malfoy just watched him. "Under restraint, burning. Alive. Like you want to break out, free."

Harry couldn't breathe. Malfoy was so much, heat and bare skin, and so solid in his space. And he did want to break out. He wanted to pull him closer, against him, to fall into him or grab him rough. But something flimsily held him. Malfoy opened his mouth but paused, frowning at something he saw in Harry's expression, and dropped his hand. There was almost sympathy, a fragility, in his face as he stepped back.

There was silence, hovering and humming like electricity, as they looked at each other. "Perhaps I'll take a shower," said Malfoy to the shadows, and drifted out the room.

Harry was in shock against the wall, before his body swarmed to life a moment after, in the now empty room. It radiated, and he slipped down the wall slightly. He could hear himself breathe; his breath, his pulse.

Distantly he heard a shower run. It must have been a while after when Harry moved, to sit tentatively on the bed. He stood up again when Malfoy came back in, accompanied with pants, dripping loose hair and water glistening on his pale chest in the shadows.

"Do you want me to go?" he said, as Malfoy swung around loosely.

"I couldn't care less," said Malfoy and fell face first onto the bed. His limbs stuck out, around him, utterly still.

Harry hesitated, and watched him. Malfoy looked asleep and messy, water glinting off his ghostly skin, and body spread. Harry looked towards the door, where soft light poured into the darkened room from the hallway. Then he knelt down beside the bed.

Malfoy's lips murmured. "You look questioning."

"You can't even see me," said Harry quietly, and it was true. Malfoy's eyes were closed, face lax.

"Minor detail." And Harry laughed gently. "About that question."

"You don't answer any of mine," said Harry.

"I don't recall that." It was murmured into the blankets, and there was a beat of silence. "One question each. Then I drift off, into the abyss."

Harry grinned, and stretched his head backwards. When he looked back, a grey eye was watching him like a cat, direct but bleary. "I'll answer yours first. I hadn't before, kissed a boy."

Malfoy watched him, gaze caressing his face slowly. "Frisky," he eventually said, and shifted to face him more. "What's your question?"

Harry had many. He wanted to ask it back, but somehow he already had a fairly good feeling he knew the answer, and thought it would sound strange. He wanted to ask why he wanted to know. He considered how drunk and half-conscious Malfoy looked, and didn't want to pry.

"Why did you get this drunk?"

Malfoy closed his eyes, and stretched loosely, before looking back at him. "That's a good one." He seemed to only notice he had evaded, as Harry had pointed out, when he watched Harry raise his eyebrows. He rolled his eyes. "I didn't have a reason not to."

Malfoy seemed to contemplate this, looking away. Then he shifted, away from Harry and settled in. Harry thought he fell asleep in the still silence that followed. He stood up quietly, looked down at Malfoy. He looked eerily peaceful, incredibly still for once as if dead, drained out and pale. Harry felt something ache, wistful and sad.

When he came back, with a glass of water and the only bowl he could find in a home without living essentials, Malfoy was unmoved. Harry flipped the blanket around, to cover his lower half, and set the bowl on the floor. A warm pool spread in his stomach as he looked down. It looked frail. He wanted to pool onto the floor, or sit and watch over him, but he eventually walked away, swallowed a climbing light in him, and closed the door on it.


	13. Stain

Alt-j – Portrait, and a mug that's older than me

* * *

Harry woke up to the sound of a key jingling in a lock. He opened bleary eyes, fingers and nose cold and body loose, and grew more and more unsettled.

"What –?" Unfamiliarity and confusion – until the night before flooded in and it clicked, where he was.

He was stretched out on a couch that smelt like smoke. Soft light ebbed from the wall-length window into the white flat, that in daylight looked lifeless and uncontained, spilling out everywhere. The air moved around languidly, through the cracked open window. He sat up, stretched and ruffled his hair slowly, blinking hard and found his glasses sitting in overlapping rings on the table.

Malfoy materialised in the room with curt footsteps down the wooden hallway, and became still. He adorned a heavy black coat, and a slightly grey face. He watched around Harry, shifting his feet, at Harry and away again. He held a steaming paper cup.

"So," he said curtly. "You stayed."

Harry opened his mouth, maybe to say he was tired or to watch over Malfoy or to remind him that he invited him, but closed it. "I did."

Malfoy looked unsure, eyes skating the kitchen now and sipping, and held himself as if in mid-step. Both vulnerable and tight.

"I thought you might have left, by the time I got back," he said, looking away.

Harry felt awkward, and didn't know what to say in the silence that followed. When Malfoy walked over to the window, opening the terrace door more to let in a heavier breeze, he stood.

"Do you want me to go?" he said, echoing himself from last night.

"Maybe you should," said Malfoy quietly, half-way out the door, leaning against it and watching the sky. In their stillness, birds whistled outside and he could hear distant chatter on the street below, a soft breeze touched his cheek.

But Malfoy slid the glass door more open, far wider then needed, the wide space open next to him. And then looked sideways at it, and so did Harry. He glanced at the couch where Harry stood, hovering. So Harry did follow, as Malfoy stepped into the terrace and sighed into the greyish sky.

It was colourless and tightly-packed but felt empty. Dead plants stood everywhere, on an empty bookshelf, more a bedside table, that stood against the brick that bordered the balcony, and in ceramic pots of all shapes and wear. They draped the place in an ashy grey, almost lavender, and again it had the mix of overflowing and untouched.

Malfoy leaned dangerously over the balcony, peering at the street with tired eyes. He had pulled a cigarette from his coat, and now let it drift from his lips to the air beyond their balcony. He seemed contemplative, within his head, dampened and removed. As if his mind raged a storm, and his body quivered slightly in the fragility of it.

"I slept on passionfruit," said Harry, sitting on the sole chair, an old weather-beaten single couch.

Malfoy remained distant, unmoving. "On carcases," he said, lips tweaking. "I can't take credit for that, actually." There was a lovely breeze flirting through dead bristles and otherwise dulled scene, cut through with slow smoke.

Harry was surprised, for the whole place felt so solitary and not treaded by another living person. "Who can?"

Malfoy remained, sipping on his coffee and turned away, and Harry thought he wouldn't get an answer. Smoke curled around itself. Then he shifted to face Harry slightly, eyes flickering over him. "He –" he hesitated. "Um, Luca, works at a fruit orchard."

Harry watched him. "You're not going to tell me about that, right?"

Malfoy's lips faltered again, seemingly against his will, and he turned away. It was early, air still chilled by night but cut through with a crisp, pale yellow light. He sighed and moved closer to Harry, to stand adjacent and lean back on the balcony edge. "What happened with Weasley?" he said tentatively.

Harry thought above the limitless things he could say, but it really came down to something simple. "It didn't work. I'm not sure, it just fell apart."

Malfoy nodded slowly, regarding him. "Same, he –" he bit his lip. "We, didn't work."

Something in Harry thrilled, climbed up his throat and hummed over his skin. Like licks of electricity, or sweat, or thrill. But also settled, calmed some longstanding conflict, as if confirming what he had known somehow, or sensed, already. He wanted to say so many things, and nothing at all. "Why?"

"He's a Muggle. He didn't know who I was," said Malfoy, turning away, eyes far away and vacant. "That's why I wanted him, at first. But …"

Harry felt he could understand, and mimicked his slow nod. The escapism and daring thrill of new, anonymous territory. To then suddenly feel foreign, hollow, scraped out. A stranger. Malfoy's ever-changing landscape grew deeper and more surprising to Harry. He thought of him with Muggles, living alone, working in a café, weaving through Harry's own life and now, standing in front of him, a kaleidoscope of unpredictability.

"Does that make you uncomfortable?" said Malfoy quietly, looking at him with a slight grin.

"What? That you –" Harry hesitated.

"Like boys," he helpfully supplied, amused.

"No," said Harry. It was not entirely true, he definitely felt unsettled, but in an entirely different way. "When did you know?"

"Hm." Malfoy sucked on his cigarette, thinking. "This summer, in short. For a while, in reality. It's the sort of thing that lets you know, you know? At least for me."

Oh, did he. Harry nodded and reigned in the smile that threatened to take over his face.

"I suppose I should thank you," said Malfoy, unfurling his hands out. "Who knows where I would've ended up last night."

"You suppose, do you?" said Harry with a smile, propping his head on his hand.

Malfoy laughed with a cigarette between his teeth. "You can force it out of me, if you like." The way he held himself, languid against the balcony wall, eyes narrowed and smiling, invited Harry in and he felt himself respond, wanting to draw in.

Malfoy had slowly grown more present, hands twitching and drawing through his hair; he lounged around the place, inspecting the decaying plants. "But I could have tumbled into a limitless amount of strange, incriminating things last night. I never know until I'm in the middle of it. Speaking of strange, why are you here?"

Harry frowned, but grew hesitant at the simple truth. "You asked me to."

Malfoy drifted slower, eyes closed over blank as he tumbled through a memory. "Oh," he looked down. "Right." He didn't seem the know what to do with himself, and so slinked back into the flat.

"Well," said Malfoy airily, as he returned a moment later with another mug. "Slughorn would be thrilled at our extracurricular efforts." There was a stiffness to him, he threw his head back and looked out. He held himself tight, arms crossed.

"You seemed pretty thrilled about it, too," said Harry, as if testing him, and watched him closely.

Malfoy's eyes snapped to him, challengingly. "What makes you say that, Potter?"

Something in him lit, a quick flare, and he stood up. "Memory, mainly."

"Mistaken, obviously." Malfoy's eyes narrowed.

"No," he said, stepping forward, but Malfoy was always so hard to read. "I don't think so."

He felt a wild surge of fear, of Malfoy leering at him and of letting the moment, the whole night, fall, forgotten in the stark daylight. To scramble up what felt like slipping through his fingers.

"You asked me over to the bar," said Harry, and tried to hold the desperate note out of his voice. Instead, there was a hardness to it. "You invited me here. You didn't want me to leave."

"Your sentimental streak inspires me, Potter," said Malfoy, scowling.

But Harry surged on. "You wanted me." He let it hang there suspended.

Malfoy looked between his eyes, temporarily lost for words, while his face raged. Harry saw something stir in his eyes, before he turned his back to him.

Harry moved forward, couldn't bear being framed out, ignored, but hesitated. He raised a hand, slow, to intrude Malfoy's space and it felt momentarily disconnected from his body. He watched it skate over Malfoy's back lightly, before settling flat on his shoulder blade, and felt trembles against him.

Malfoy was still, but something hummed violently under his skin. He jolted away. "I want you to leave," he said tightly.

Harry was still, something painful unfurling in his stomach and sinking him. But he did, after a moment, back away and storm through the flat to the door, unfocused and floating and heavy and tight, without looking back.

Once he had Apparated to the Hogwart's gates, he couldn't think where to go without running into people, and he couldn't be with people. He walked, as if drunk.

He could not ignore it now. It swelled within him like an untameable mess that diffused his blank canvas. Of chaos and undefinable mass and life.

It took him over. Tainted his whole being with the colourless vapour boy. He had never been so – so, took – with anyone. It struck him.

He wanted Malfoy, more than desired him, but felt – felt; it ached inside him, pulsed through him.

But Malfoy was so changeable like a storm. He was so affected and so vacant. And so entirely unpredictable, he could never place him. He was just like his damn flat, so refined and regal and aloof but so chaotic and spilling over and wild. Just like he claimed Harry to be.

He doubted he would ever be able to know what Malfoy felt. A theory or observation would seem definite in one moment, but impossible in the next, with the rug pulled out from under his feet every time. But he knew now, that Malfoy liked boys.

As did Harry.

In the days that past, Harry felt a certainty begin to creep through him, arrive at his forefront. It seemed so obvious, but so unlike him, at the same time. Rather, it became him, as he felt it was always supposed to.

He lingered on boys, curious. He watched narrow hips and long legs and broad shoulders, masculine hands rubbing sharp jaws, flexing and unfurling arms stretched high with deep, rumbling laughs. Wiry, muscular wrists, stubble and sharp angles.

He thought of girls too. The curve of a hip, thin waists, and rounded thighs. Lashes skating over cheeks, a softness, gentle necks. Delicate hands twisting hair, laughter on full lips, feline and sultry. He thought of Ginny, her distinctively feminine feel and fire and strength. He thought of Malfoy, brimming to the surface with life and power under hard, wiry muscles and sharp angles.

"Are you alright, Harry?" And Harry looked round, sitting by the fire of the common room later. Hermione was watching him with concern.

They were both so far away from him. Ron and Hermione, left behind or diverted, in everything that swarmed Harry now.

"We were meaning to ask," she began, looking shiftily at Ron. "What happened to you Saturday night?"

"Yeah, you disappeared," said Ron, stretching languidly. "And didn't come to bed."

 _Did I find Hermione or Ron more attractive? Who would I rather settle for, what's more natural to me?_ His mind was reeling and he felt beyond himself somewhere in space.

Hermione was still watching him cautiously, but a grin stretched across Ron's face. "Did you go home with someone?"

Well. He was still silent but Ron seemed to see something.

"So tell us," he said grinning. "Who is she?"

Harry felt his mouth open and close.

"Is it a secret?" said Ron, and stood up yawning. "You've been so secretive lately, we'll get it out of you one day." Then he chuckled and hobbled off to the dormitories.

Hermione bit her lip, and shifted to where Harry sat on the floor, back against a couch. "Harry?" she said quietly, peering at him. "You know you can tell us anything, right?"

He watched her, and felt his heart swell, appreciating her more than ever for being just herself.

"We love you, no matter what. You don't have to tell us, but just know that." She smiled tentatively at him, and rubbed his knee before setting off to bed.

He could just let it slip out. But he didn't know what to say, what words to use. _I like boys, particularly a self-entitled misanthropic ex-villain who you'll best remember as a constant source of antagonism and bullying. Oh, and he's sort of a chaotic maniac who wants me around and doesn't want me around and I think I hate as much as I want._

Harry was fucked. Especially because the only thing he knew, was it wasn't even true. He didn't hate.

It came to him at breakfast, as toast hovered in the vicinity of his mouth and his eyes had been blearily cast at the Slytherin table. He straightened up in urgency. He could like both. He did like both, if he could, and he did, before he knew it was a could. The word teased the tip of his tongue, and he laughed into the air wildly.

Ron and Hermione froze their conversation mid-word to turn to him, identical mixed expressions of concern and shock.

Bisexual. It hadn't even passed through his muddled mind. His goddamn mind.

His friends, and those in his immediate vicinity, watched him cautiously. It took him a while to care, something filling him up and lightening him. But when he did, he looked around and met pairs of eyes everywhere. He tried smiling sheepishly, to clear his throat and focus on eating, but whenever he flicked his gaze up someone was watching. He cast his eyes around quickly, self-consciously, and locked with a familiar pair.

Grey eyes, direct and bright, stared at him from far away. He looked back. Malfoy's expression was so open and candid for a moment, and Harry felt a balloon of warmth swell in him, eat him up. Malfoy looked curiously at him, as if studying him innocently. But then a shift – the grey was brooding, alive, a swarm of movement – before it closed over entirely like a door, and he looked away. Harry kept watching him long after.

* * *

(side-note) I understand my gender description is very binary and has a cisgender bias, and this leads to very restrictive gender ideas and boxes. It is meant to be preliminary, explorative for Harry, a surface level for someone pretty confused, but I get that it's icky and not correct.


	14. Linger

pottery, squirrel monkeys on my shoulder, I Need a Forest Fire - James Blake

* * *

Harry was in orbit around Malfoy. In constant distraction. In the library sessions that week, something felt distinctly unacknowledged. Malfoy brooded in corners, hunched in and intolerant, only opening his mouth to snap at Harry, chastise him for something or other. It could have been monumental or non-existent, it didn't matter, his speech blurred together indistinguishably in a furl of sharp anger. Otherwise he was silent, and Harry was foggy indifference, numb to it all, except for the slow drip of a sustained ache in him. For something that felt unsaid, swept under the carpet, and also lingering. The unsaid stranger in the room between them. But of course, Malfoy seemed as much affected as he was careless.

They soon started working in the Potions classroom, experimenting with ingredients and mixes. Malfoy was proficient and absorbed, Harry was tentative and distracted. He watched Malfoy prowl around their table, scattering bundles and jars and vials around with quick flicks of his wrist and moving his body in jerks and furls. Fiddling with temperatures, cauldrons bubbling furiously and overflowing with mist and fumes, or else liquid quivering like a disturbed black pool in the cauldron.

Harry was shredding dandelion roots, slow and stationary, as Malfoy darted between the storeroom and around all sides of the table. Slicing, mixing, stirring and pouring many things at once. He kept wiping hair out of his eyes hurriedly, and his dusk veins coiled under his exposed skin, and muscles stretched and tensed in turn, as he fumbled and darted. As he blocked Harry out of his confined chaos.

Harry was thrown into nostalgia, and felt entirely disorientated and an odd, absent long sadness. At the identical scene in the classroom, but changed people. All components revolving awkwardly around each other, misplaced and unsettled.

The next day, Malfoy was dreary and vapid, and hardly seemed there. Harry wondered where he had gone, as he watched Malfoy, unseen. His grey eyes were overcast and unfocused. Harry wanted to catch his chin, angle his face towards him and draw him into consciousness. Clear away stormy clouds.

The day after, he didn't even turn up. Harry realised pretty soon he was lost without Malfoy, he couldn't manage anything and it all felt pointless. He gave up, sighing and discarding everything behind him.

It was post dusk in the library, as he walked quietly through, heading towards a tight corner, a hideaway. Warm lamp lights lit the otherwise shadowed, empty hallways. He head towards a familiar window and single desk, tucked in a nook, when he found him.

Malfoy was stretched against the window, leaning on the window sill and half-sitting. He was turned towards the sky; discarded books lay around him. A streak of moonlight hit his school shirt, tumbled over his shoulder as he faced away from Harry, otherwise slipped into the darkness of the tight space.

Harry felt like an intruder, but also felt intruded as he had become, in some small or great way, just as much part of this scene as the books and chair, in as much time he'd spent here.

He walked silently forward. "Where were you?"

Malfoy noticeably tensed at his voice, but remained unmoving.

"You didn't come tonight," said Harry, in the silence that followed. "Where'd you go?"

Malfoy was still, faded into the still and silent scene. "Drowned in the mess in my flat. Overdosed on caffeine. To the afterlife." His body sighed, before he tensed again. "Where do you think, Potter? Am I a ghost?"

Harry reeled in the smile that tugged at his mouth. "So you've been here the whole time? Why didn't you tell me?"

"Sorry to disappoint, even though I'm fantastic at it," said Malfoy. "I'm not quite as obsessed with you as everyone else."

He sounded vacant, as if automatic. Harry felt an itch of anger in his stomach. "Guess I imagined your flat then."

Malfoy turned his head in his direction, but was looking away. "Funny," he said, a small, cruel smirk on his lips. "You were always prone to mental complications."

Harry stood watching him, and anger eventually resigned to a sad indifference. Malfoy seemed to be avoiding his gaze – a repeated pattern this week – and he turned back to the window. Harry leaned back, head resting there, on a bookshelf.

Malfoy looked utterly resigned, exhausted. "Go stalk someone else."

"You're in my spot."

"Oh, you own the library now, do you?" said Malfoy in exasperation.

Harry frowned. "You know this is my escape, I think that makes you the stalker."

Malfoy scowled at him. He popped the latch of the window, and swung it open into the night. "Maybe I'll jump out the window, you drive me insane," he said, smirking. He leaned dangerously over the edge, breathing in the cold air, body lax.

But before Harry could react, he leaned off the window-sill in the next moment, and skulked past Harry silently, disappearing.

Harry only realised in his dormitory, later in the night, that he was right. Malfoy knew that was his hideaway.

Malfoy was in the library the next night. This time, Harry only realised once he'd past him, enclosed between shelves. An image stained his mind, caught unconsciously, of a pale figure smoking at a window. He kept walking, and found a far-in corner to waste time in. His mind, however, was beside the window with Malfoy.

And again, as he slipped out the next morning for breakfast. He just caught sight of white blonde hair, in a fracture between books, on his way out.

This time, Harry wasn't paranoid. Malfoy really was everywhere. Malfoy knew his hideaway. It was that thought really, or speculation, that became the catalyst for the growing, insane ritual.

The next time, Malfoy was sitting on a long table with clusters of people at all different points or huddled together. But he was alone, at the end corner in the dark, immersed in a large book. Almost at one with the large shelf behind him. Harry walked past him, to bury himself in the maze. In the hours that past, he felt the looming presence of him creep on his skin, the back of his mind, in shadows that grew in his niche. Long after night fell, Harry walked slowly out and saw the pale figure alone, at an abandoned table, out of the warm lamp light. Almost unseen, without a distinct outline, so that at that moment he looked like a ghost.

Harry walked slower when he got to the table, and passed Malfoy, but found himself slowing, hovering halfway down. He slid his book on the table, still facing forward. He thought, but felt thoughtless, when he eventually slid in the seat and settled in.

He waited, eventually cast a sideways glance – Malfoy was wholly unchanged, brow creased as he read, letting steam caress his face from his thermos. Harry turned his attention to his book – unsuccessfully of course – but eventually felt himself relax and slide down in his chair, head on his palm. Neither looked towards each other, nor spoke a word. Malfoy left first, silently treading the floor, and was gone.

It was like an insane dance of willpower, a daring game. Every day, Harry would stroll into the library and chance upon Malfoy. Until eventually, it didn't become chance. Nestled between shelves, against a window, hunched into a book on a desk, framed out of a bustling crowd on a table, wandering down the endless rows, haunting the books. And Harry would slowly become part of his enclosed scene. Ornamental, like the books or the chairs or the portraits that watched Malfoy become utterly absorbed, so whatever trivial thing he was doing looked sacred and ritualistic.

Harry balanced back on a chair, head thrown back, as Malfoy read intently opposite him. Harry sat stretched on the floor, hands in his hair as he both did and didn't watch Malfoy smoke out a window, his face distant. Harry sprawled at a long table and flirted with his snitch while Malfoy talked to himself quietly, writing with quivering hands. Harry paced through homework at a single desk, while Malfoy paced the nearby shelves, pulling free books at random at chucking them at Harry's feet for later inspection.

The work in the Potions classroom was seamed against it. Nothing of what was happening in the library was mentioned, or seemed to affect Malfoy. He was predictably unpredictable; he flitted around the room and possessively asserted himself everywhere, over the ensemble of potion-making, or wholly removed and vacant, or irritable and impossible. But always efficient and absorbed, snapping at Harry on occasion as if on running automatically in his focus, or ignoring him entirely.

The library became their maze. Harry wrote letters addressed to dead friends and family while Malfoy rolled cigarette after cigarette, fingers fumbling paper and tobacco threads, licking close one after the other. Malfoy created a pile of fruit carcases out of oranges, and Harry tried to not think of Luca. Harry watched people walk on the grounds outside with limbs hanging out windows, as Malfoy quietly quoted the book he was reading to no one.

Later, after the jarring habit was long established, they spoke. The first time, Harry watched Malfoy's lips encircle a cigarette, eyes bleary at the horizon as the first traces of light spread pink across the dawn sky.

"Why did you come back, to Hogwarts?" said Harry quietly. Malfoy's head jerked, because Harry had broken the unspoken rule. He cast his eyes towards Harry, who was spread on the floor, propped up on the shelf behind him. His gaze swept him, but didn't meet his.

Malfoy looked outside, face confused and contorting slightly. Until it settled, and he sighed out a cloud of smoke.

"I thought," he started. He had to draw another drag, and wait before he could continue. "I thought that it would be different, to before."

Harry thought he could catch the undertone, from both knowing and not knowing Malfoy. He thought he could be different, if he came back. Dumbledore flashed in Harry's mind, and his everlasting belief in second chances, and Harry smiled slightly.

The second time, dusk had slowly faded into night and Malfoy was reading a papery novel that was just about ready to fall apart. Harry leaned, with elbows propped against the window, from a desk and let his hand run loosely through the chilling air outside. He froze when he heard the quietest voice from behind him.

"Why did you save me?" And Harry leaned back instantly, to turn to him. "In the Room of Requirement."

Harry watched him openly, lips parting in shock. Malfoy looked back from the floor, elbows on his knees and head against the shelf behind him, eyes unwavering. There was something so vulnerable about the way he was looking at Harry, that Harry felt his chest swell, warm and full inside him. It poked through, from under his composed expression, like a light, innocent and earnest, in the grey mass.

Harry didn't know what to say. Malfoy watched him expectantly, but after a while bit his lip warily. Harry shifted, so he could face him properly, and tried thinking. "Because," he began. He ran fingers over his lips in thought, brow furrowed. "If I could go back, I'd do it again."

Malfoy watched him closely, and the grey mass shifted after a while. They looked pained as he looked away.

The next, Harry had been scribbling mindlessly on paper for too long, trying to think of how to articulate the question that played on repeat in his head. Eventually he looked up, at Malfoy who was reading against the window, head pressed against the glass as soft dusk blues painted his moving lips, uttering words silently as he read.

"How did you know," said Harry, gaze moving between Malfoy and the window. "That you like boys, I mean."

Malfoy looked at him from the corner of his eye, and raised his eyebrows as if amused. Then he turned to face Harry in seriousness.

"I just do," said Malfoy, voice soft. He seemed to think about it for a while, alternating between watching Harry and watching the sky darken slowly outside, and Harry let him. "It grew upon me. It made no sense, until it made total sense." He frowned slightly in thought.

Harry watched him intently, at his face reflecting a whirlwind of thought, as if waiting for him to continue. After a while, Malfoy caught him watching and sighed. "You want the long answer." It was almost a question, but Harry merely faintly smiled.

"Okay," said Malfoy, face serious as he thought. Then he whipped out a cigarette appreciatively as if this conversation could not be done without it. "You notice things, without noticing. Then you notice you're noticing. That fucks you up for a while." He smiled, eyes far away, and took a light puff. "Then, for me in my marooned life this summer, you grow curious. You experiment. The answer, if there ever is one, looks you in the face."

Harry looked away, nodding slowly and biting him bottom lip to keep from smiling. He stood up and stretched, ruffling his hair, mind entirely distracted.

"Would I be breaking the rules, by asking a question back?" Malfoy said it to the window, face turned away.

"You were never one for rules, Malfoy," said Harry, amused and pulse beating irrationally. But he moved off and slipped around the corner before he could get a word in, laughing to himself.

The next one, Malfoy was peeling the skin from a green apple with a knife, a strange quirk Harry was beginning to learn was characteristic. Harry was doing absolutely nothing, also characteristic, fingering the loose spines of aging books. Malfoy's quick hands stilled, and he looked across at Harry, sitting opposite him on the floor.

"So," and his voice crawled, like pins drawn against nerves, on Harry's skin. It was barely audible. "Why did you want to know?"

Harry raised his eyebrows at him, and then something moved into place in his mind, and his jaw twitched. "Unclear what you mean, Malfoy." His fingers moved tentatively over brittle paper.

When he looked back, Malfoy was merely smirking at him, waiting. Harry couldn't help it, his lips twitched upwards, and he had to look away, as if suddenly interested in cloud formations outside, biting his smiling lip.

"Right," said Malfoy. "Of course. You know you're an open book, Potter?"

"Uncontained, right?" he said, smiling at the sky. "Boiling under the surface?"

He caught Malfoy's hidden smile when his gaze returned, before it disappeared. "Can't say the same for me, I'm a man of many layers."

"I don't doubt that," said Harry. "All hidden below." He was hoping Malfoy couldn't see him evade.

Malfoy shook his head in exasperation, and continued peeling. They sat in peaceful silence, and Harry watched Malfoy smile gently down at his moving hands.


	15. Bare

Look, I eat a lot of fruit okay. Bon iver - 33 God

* * *

Harry was split.

He was propped between the Malfoy in the Potions classroom and the one in the library. Malfoy was too; a walking contradiction. His intolerance and his openness, his cruelty and kindness, absent and inviting. But Harry had this insane notion that if he poked too hard, ran at it, the whole thing would crawl back into a hole. And Harry would be left revolving around himself. So he felt himself tread carefully, as if watching from the outside. But couldn't help indulging in their private space, toying with it carefully, enclosed and unseen.

Harry was letting a ripped sheet of aged paper hover over his face, blowing it airborne and feeling it settle on his face like a caress, as he lay flat against the library floor in the night. Malfoy sat stretched against a bookshelf on the floor at Harry's feet and was hunched into a book larger than his chest. Harry saw grey eyes flicker to him once from above the book, judgemental and amused.

At one point, Malfoy let the book slip from his grasp slowly and fall to the floor with a thud. Harry shook the paper off his face, looking over at Malfoy who had his eyes closed and was rubbing his face against a bleary smile.

"You are quite possibly," he began quietly, and then dropped his hands with exhaustion. "The strangest mad person I know out of all the strange mad people I know."

Harry laughed openly to the roof in the night, and sat up. He was immediately aware, from that movement, that they were now noticeably close, only separated by the length of his stretched legs as he leaned on one propped hand on the floor.

"Malfoy." He took a deep breath as Malfoy raised his eyebrows, amused. "You collect dead plants. You're basically a frugivore. And your body water consists entirely of black coffee. You move as if you're being damn electrified most of the time. Half the things you say make no sense. You often act as if you have an invisible friend listening to you. And your entire existence is covered in coffee powder and ash –"

Harry broke off from his spiel, and closed his mouth. He looked at Malfoy slowly, who was staring at him with his mouth slightly open.

Malfoy searched him with widened eyes, blatant surprise on his face. Before it settled into untamed amusement. "I knew it!" he said, laughing wildly, too loud for the space. "You're my stalker!"

Harry watched him laugh openly, first trying to refute but when failing and obviously ignored, just shook his head at Malfoy, who was now laughing into his hands, his shoulders shaking.

"You are a maniac," said Harry.

"Well," said Malfoy, and he looked at him teasingly. "You'd know."

Harry opened his mouth but failed, when looking at Malfoy's expression. He was smiling at him so openly, with warmth, tracing around his face slowly with soft eyes. Just an arm's width away. Harry felt flutter and light fill him slowly up whole, and he smiled back. He felt a fleeting want, to cross the distance. Or trace Malfoy's inviting, smiling face, to invite him back. But he merely indulged, watching the grey clouds swirl with warmth and curiosity, as his own crinkled.

X

Harry was walking between their table in the classroom and the Potions storeroom on a seemingly endless loop. Malfoy sent him back and forth, eyes furrowed at a book and skit across the pages hurriedly. Malfoy was a flurry of indecision and speed, as he ordered Harry around, moving all over the place, doing everything at once and leaving everything half finished.

"Four not three!" Malfoy called from the empty classroom, and Harry paused to spin on his heel, heading the direction he came to the storeroom.

Malfoy was energetic and relentless, as his hands quivered and furled over everything. He talked to the air, or snapped at Harry, or his lips moved silently as he read in intense scrutiny. But Harry was content running rounds, merely orbiting passively in the background.

Harry was crushing berries slowly, watching almost hypnotically as red juice squirted wildly as skins were flattened and burst against the table. But Malfoy rounded on him. "You're pulverising them!" he said, and snatched the pestle to demonstrate.

The mess Harry was making was astounding; bright red juice and violet mushy flesh and seeds and dark purple skins all muddled together in thick clumps and fluid on the table. His hands looked like they were bleeding, and as if they were carrying half the mess as he slowly mushed the mix. Malfoy was huddled over the cauldron intently, dropping leaf by leaf into the still pool, and his thumb tapped the table insistently, mindlessly, right hand perched against the table next to Harry. Harry watched as flecks of red and purple hit it in his wild work, dots growing on Malfoy's pale skin.

As Malfoy pulled a book towards him, his hand shifted more and flattened against the table, nearer to Harry. Over time Harry grew more attentive of it, as the flecks against the skin eventually grew to droplets that traced lines like wine coloured veins across it. Malfoy hardly seemed aware, as absorbed as he was, but his hand twitched and thin bones beat through his stained skin. Soon it became a part of the mess, bleeding into the growing expanse of red and purple pulp and juice.

Harry was using his spare left hand to palm down the flesh, and in the indecipherable mess it grated once against cool skin. He sprung it back, and spray of berry blood flicked wildly in response. He cast a glance at Malfoy from the corner of his eye, but he was mouthing words to himself, focused. Harry moved his hand through soft flesh again, and let it mix fluidly with the mess surrounding Malfoy's hand. His fingers slid over long, lean fingers lightly, and lingered there. He saw Malfoy's lips still.

It could have felt so indistinct, with the swamp of skins and flesh and seeds, so their hands became part of the pulverised mess. It could have been, but Harry moved. He moved so slowly, to cover Malfoy's hand, so that his overlapped blurred in the landscape of reds and purples, bleeding over them. His pulse beat wildly, in his neck and chest, and he felt a dangerous heat. Daring, because he was so convinced that in Malfoy's unbroken tide of energy and concentration, he was about to be shoved away and chastised sharply.

But his hand remained, covering a slippery, quivering one. Bleeding liquid ran between their touching skin, from Harry's painted hand. Utterly distracted, his pestle hung loose and glancing over again, Malfoy's eyes had frozen on the page, face unchanged.

He couldn't contain the flush that unfurled through his limbs and shook his hands. Harry's finger pulsed, a pressure against the hand underneath, and jerked again. As if unconsciously tapping, testing, Malfoy.

There was a painful timeless moment. It lasted every tense beat of Harry's body, for an incalculable time. And he almost lost balance, a hard jolt in his stomach, as he felt long fingers move beneath his. With the slowest drag against his skin, they moved in the gaps between his, and weaved. Intertwined, to latch lightly, with Harry's fingers. Harry felt his lips quiver, muscles tense, but contained the insane urge to turn his head, to look at him, read his face.

Harry waited, before he clenched Malfoy's hand in his tightly, and could feel every hum of life in it. The ticks of sporadic, electric movement; the fragile beats of his palm, furling and licks of his fingers, the light tremor that traced his skin. It was far more breakable than he had imagined. The quiver he knew thread through him. And when a single pale finger traced his skin feather-light, achingly slow, Harry couldn't breathe.

He held him tight, before he felt a slight jolt of movement, as Malfoy's hand unthread from his slowly. It fell off the table, and his head ducked further into his book.

Harry tried swallowing, throat thick, and tried moving his own hand, but there was this strange rushing sound in his head as his body both floated off and pulsed too aware. He couldn't quite see Malfoy's expression as he hunched over the book, but he looked remarkably unchanged.

Malfoy didn't snap at him for the rest of their session, but didn't ignore him as he passed him ingredients back and forth. They remained silent.

X

That evening, Harry had stopped playing with his Snitch as he grew distracted, eventually leaning forward to add to the growing pile of cherry pips that Malfoy was manifesting from nowhere. The enclosed library window-sill was soon littered with them, as they sat either side of it cross-legged. Malfoy was ritually slicing open skins with his thumb nail, digging in, and uprooting a small pip, creating two piles in front of him. One grew smaller and one grew larger between them. Harry began eating each cherry, but Malfoy moved incessantly and slow, glancing at him in humoured disapproval, while Harry grinned with a full mouth.

"So," said Malfoy, and seemed in a trace. "Are you going out tonight?"

Harry had been thinking about the way the dark cherry blood mixed with the Malfoy's heavy scent, that curled around him and took over the space, earthy and alive and intoxicating. He wanted to taste the blur of scent on Malfoy's veined wrist, stained with fruit juice. He blinked at Malfoy's voice, and pulled himself from the gripping urge and visual.

"No," he said, stretching back. Their year had been planning another big night out, this time at the Leaky Cauldron. The news had spread through all houses, and Harry heard that people that hadn't come back to Hogwarts or had graduated were coming down. "It's a bit crowded. You?"

Malfoy kept up the train line of cherry pips, watching his hands. "I have a coffee date with coffee."

Harry smiled vacantly, nodded slow and drew a hand over his jaw. He thought and looked out the window. He wanted to laugh at himself for the idea, but searched Malfoy's blank expression. He bit his smiling lip, and then composed his face, something twisting his throat. "I like coffee."

Malfoy raised his eyebrows but kept pipping.

Harry watched him for the longest time, and it grew midnight blue outside. Malfoy's pale skin was reflective of the night, and his eyes seemed glazed over and glowing moon grey. Too long, eventually, he glanced up at Harry. He looked between Harry's eyes, blank, before he looked back down.

Malfoy stood up first to go, and leaned against the wall, as he looked unseeing out into the night.

"Well," he said low. An impossible, still moment passed as no one in the world watched them circle, lost together in the maze, around the edge and teeter.

Their eyes met eventually, openly. The unsaid edge, the risk, hovered like mist between and around them.

Malfoy smiled as if he was testing Harry, his expression hard to read. Tentative and suggestive, tugging at Harry in a shared secret, but reigned back. Harry felt bright, something dangerous humming and gathering, up, to the edge of his lips. He thought of their hands blurred together, indistinguishable from the other, in the classroom.

Malfoy's eyes grew unfocused, and he turned to the shadows. He lent off the wall, and dropped his head to the ground.

"You know where I live." Harry caught the words when he had long looked away, watching the sky in a chaotic blur of mind and body, unable to register himself or what had just happened, but guessing defeat.

He snapped his head to Malfoy who was now looking past him at the vast expanse of sky, body lax against a bookshelf. He moved his eyes down after a moment, looked at Harry with an odd, open expression. He walked away, slipping around the corner, and Harry rubbed hands over his smiling face slowly. His body thud and drifted. He watched stars emerge from the dark mass while his head spun out of time and matter, and could do nothing but smile.


	16. Moth

parks at dusk, bus stops and geraniums. I Wanna Be Yours - Arctic Monkeys

* * *

PART TWO

The Flat

* * *

Harry felt unchained as he stood at the Hogwart's gates alone in the night. Body and mine loose, he felt as if he was dislodging from something familiar, as if it peeled like scales and unfurled from him, lightened his chest with each step. To walk into something dangerous and strange and exhilarating. He knew – it kept surfacing in his mind on a roll – that he was following Malfoy's chaos. Tapping into it. Treading his well-worn trail, as he left Hogwarts carelessly with an inherited devil-may-care attitude that wasn't born from him.

Harry's canvas was diffused, overflowing, with him. He could feel him, with each beat of his body. Always on him.

Neither of them had said anything about what was going on. They had, unspoken, begun to spend almost every waking second in each other's company, when not in classes. It felt as if by accident, and now conscious habit. Alone, but orbiting each other. Until it wasn't solitude, they didn't spend time alone – they crossed boundaries now, Harry stumbled into Malfoy's space and mind daringly, and Malfoy had slowly opened, and returned the act. Uncurling something ... unexpected.

And Harry wanted him. He wanted him – he could feel it gripping him constantly. It seemed the only real thing he thought, that affected him, on a sickeningly endless roll inside him. That tested him and doubted him, poked him with sharp tools, burned him with unrolling coils, dizzied him like bright lights.

He felt as if he had chanced upon something, broken something open, since that night in Malfoy's flat. Saw something, usually composed and buried under layers and under the energy it took to contain it all. Now, Harry kept trying to shine light, poke or prod those cracks whenever they were together. Their pendulum question game, back and forth, or letting the other stretch out in their shared space, exposed and fuzzy, borderless to the other. And when something, raw and fragile, would look at him he felt less than human, dissolved and lifeless. Out of his own body, just happy to watch this otherworldly, labyrinth of a boy laugh to the sky full-fledged, or quiver with a fullness to his brim of life and power, or the light that shone from his grey eyes. Innocent and warm and curious and open, inviting Harry.

But no – it wasn't acknowledged. Even while Harry had an uneasy feeling they both were more aware than they let on. More Malfoy, with his knowing smirk, than Harry, who could only guess. Malfoy was far too – Malfoy, for Harry to be sure of anything.

Harry had sat in the common room, watching excitable Gryffindors bumble around the place while his mind romped. He gave half-hearted excuses, but didn't need to say much; he thought that everyone was pretty used to his isolation by now.

If they knew the truth, well.

He waited until every last one had left in an excited blur, and then slipped into the night, across the grounds, slipping everything behind.

Harry Apparated at the front door, thinking it was probably more polite even while he'd only got a glance of it on his stormy way out last time. It was levels up, up flights of stairs of an old, rickety building that felt musty and unhinged and battered. Tall ceilings and narrow staircases, ornate dark wood, shadows and lines of stain-glass windowed doors. At number 17, Harry raised his fist to knock but felt a breeze from the gap in the door, hanging open slightly in the dark.

He pushed it, letting it swing open gently and walked cautiously down the hallway.

"Seriously, candles?" he blurted out, and a tall pale figure spun around from the kitchen. The flat was lined with candles, standing on tall piles of books and peppering the floor dangerously with no pattern, one each on a kitchen bench and the table beside the couch. It painted the place with warm, slightly flickering light. The streetlamps outside, from the wide open window-wall, already allowed enough white, artificial light in the flat so everything was clear and distinguishable, but the candles added glow. When he caught Malfoy's eye, he closed his mouth and flushed.

"I can't afford power," said Malfoy, looking dreary. "Didn't realise until it was cut. Then the candles grew on me, so I just left it." He moved back around, and continued fiddling with a stovetop moka pot. Bitter espresso coated the papery, fruit and earthy scent of the flat. "But rather indicative of you, Potter."

Harry felt his flush tingle over his face, and gently cleared his throat. But when Malfoy looked over, he looked soft and humoured. "Come," he said, holding out his arm towards him for a moment before it dropped to his side. "You like coffee."

Harry lips twitched, a grin playing over his face, and moved into the kitchen. From the bench he took the ceramic mug that looked older than him.

"Can't afford?" he said, sipping on the bitter stuff.

"I know," said Malfoy, leaning against the counter and shaking his head. "What has the world come to." It seemed so odd, Malfoy without money. It seemed so wrapped up in him in the past, his clear identifier.

"It suits you," said Harry, and when Malfoy rose his eyebrows he thought to clarify. "I mean, it's yours, isn't it? This place. It feels like yours." He looked around the flat fondly, at the quirks and chaos. "It feels like you."

Malfoy was watching him hesitantly when he looked back, and after a moment he looked away and straightened up. He looked blurry, soft edges, tired eyes. "Well, even so. The prince, in his palace. Now the pauper, in exile."

"Archetypal," said Harry, laughing at himself. "You're categorical."

"Good Lord, Potter," said Malfoy, moving around him silently after knocking back his coffee. "You are so strange." He furled around a tall bottle of wine, and worked to uncork it with pale spidery fingers.

Harry laughed, because it was Malfoy who never made sense and never really seemed fully there and spoke and lived so strangely. "Right. You're just feeling sorry for yourself."

"Nah," said Malfoy, pouring rich dark wine into clear, tall glasses. With long stems and bulbous bodies, they seemed so refined for the place. "Well, yeah alright." He fought the smile building at his lips.

"It's alright," said Harry, grabbing a wine glass with certainty and moving away. "That's what the wine is for." He plonked down on the floor in the middle of the flat, beside the tallest candle. He sprawled on the floor and let out a heavy sigh, sighing out so his body resigned into the floor, flat.

"Look at him. Like he owns the damn place," said Malfoy, and Harry could imagine him, even though his eyes were closed. Leaning against something, watching him in amusement and disapproval. Harry moved the glass to his lips slowly, balancing it there and letting it teeter over the edge of his lips. But he overestimated and trickles ran over his cheeks and he jolted up.

"You're a mess," decided Malfoy from behind him, as Harry was laughing wildly. He grabbed a ripped sliver of paper near him, discarded on the floor, and wiped his face.

Harry could hear Malfoy move around behind him, as he lay back down and closed his eyes. Night air shifted through the room, and he could hear gentle footsteps and Malfoy murmuring to himself. "Me, the bad influence," he caught from the low, vacant mumbles.

"Why do you say that?" said Harry lazily.

"I'm poisoning you. Coffee and wine and cigarettes," he said, expressionless. Harry heard him around his feet now, so he opened his eyes slightly. Malfoy was smoking and looking outside, back turned to him.

"Cigarettes?" said Harry, sitting up.

Malfoy turned to him. "Oh right. Here," he said, whipping out another cigarette and holding it out. "Initiation," he said, smirking.

"Nah, peer pressure, more like," said Harry, laughing softly. Malfoy rolled his eyes and moved languidly, unrolling to the floor and sitting at Harry's feet to face him.

Harry had smoked before, but nothing as memorable as when Malfoy caught his gaze, reaching an arm out to nestle the white tip of a cigarette between his lips, moving them apart softly. Harry's pulse beat wildly, a cascade of electric beats up his neck, in his stomach, as he held his gaze. His lips encircled it, moving automatically, held it when Malfoy dropped his arm and flicked out his wand. Malfoy's eyes were reflective, of candle light and something daring stirring up the slates of grey. He conjured a flame and held it close to Harry, who leaned forward and watched it lick the cigarette and singe. He looked back at Malfoy, and felt a hard jolt in his stomach when he realised Malfoy was watching his lips as smoke unfurled from the corners.

Harry perched the cigarette between the tips of fingers and drew it away, smoke rolling in his tight throat. "Did I pass?" he could barely get it out, and Malfoy's eyes shifted up to his, alive. His lips twitched in humour, but he didn't reply as he stood up languidly.

Harry sipped wine and smoked lazily as he watched Malfoy walk drearily around, mumbling to himself and talk about nothing, smoking slowly. He got the distinct impression that Malfoy kept trying to return to some surface, skim around and scatter. Moving loose like the slight breeze, redoubling and resurfacing to something vague and uncatchable. The picture of impermanence.

It felt dislocated to Harry, who was peaceful on the floor. He felt warm, as if immersed and belonging to the scene. He lay down flat again, balancing the wine glass on his lower lip. He did feel influenced; he was swarmed by him, into him. Within his privacy and mind – his flat, coffee, wine, cigarette. Soaking him in and affected, by all that affected Malfoy.

He put his wine down and closed his eyes, his body humming, content. He stretched an arm out aimlessly, let it hover in the air. "Come," he said lazily, soft.

The footsteps slowed, patted the floor as if in slow thought. But after a while, when his arm had dropped loosely, they moved again. He felt a body shift, and lie flat beside him, and Harry grinned.

"What did you mean," said Malfoy quietly, after a while. "It feels like me?"

"The flat? It's spilling over, all over the place, but almost quietly. You have to look closely." Harry wasn't sure if he was making sense, but it felt easy, talking to the roof with his eyes closed.

Malfoy was quiet, and Harry replayed his own words in his head, thinking. "You sound like me," said Malfoy eventually. "Or are you pretending that was original, hoping I'd forget."

Harry laughed, remembering Malfoy's observation about him. "I'm just saying what I think. It's both careful and chaotic."

"Chaotic," repeated Malfoy, as if tasting the word. Harry opened his eyes and looked over at him lying beside him, less than an arms width away. He watched Malfoy draw wine to his lips and his throat contract. He looked open at the edges, pale against the shadows.

"Chaotic," said Malfoy again. "Says you. You've been breeding chaos since I've known you."

Harry frowned lightly. "My chaos just has more consequences."

"That's not always your fault," said Malfoy softly.

"Sometimes it is," said Harry, watching him.

Harry propped up on his elbow to see him better, and felt something painful uncoil inside him. Malfoy's gaze swivelled, meeting Harry's. From how he was lying, Malfoy's ash grey t-shirt scrunched up at his lower stomach, and Harry could see a gash of discoloured skin, rippled slightly.

He watched it, feeling something climb up his body and throat and hollow him through. Stab him with a slow ache. His eyes flicked to Malfoy's, who was watching him with a crease between his brows. Harry watched him carefully, and moved his hand so slow, reaching out in the space between them. He searched Malfoy openly, and saw something stir in his wintery eyes, an impulse both lit and held back, a fragility in the shift. He waited, for anger or rejection or hurt, but Malfoy was still. Harry watched his own hand, moving towards him. His fingers lightly skimmed the scar, dragging across with the tips. He felt the ruined skin, the groves and knots, against him and his breath caught. It burned like ice against his skin. It hurt and carved him through. The bareness and cold reality of the ruined skin against the smooth, white pool of skin.

Harry looked up to Malfoy again, who was watching him closely. The curiosity in them barely covered the vulnerability. There was something truly frail, and wild.

Harry watched his fingers move slower, trailing the scar to the edge of his shirt. They skimmed the edge, before sinking, skirting under gently. He glanced at Malfoy, and saw his jaw twitch. He followed the long scar, felt its varied depth and disfigured texture, over his lean stomach. Slight quivers fought against his skin, sporadic and uncontained. He was pushing the shirt up in his slow trail, exposing the mix of pink shades against the expanse of pale, hard skin. It looked both faded and raw. Harry traced around it with light fingers, as it stretched up to his harder chest. He couldn't say what he was thinking. He hoped his delicate fingers spoke for him, his remorse and guilt and self-repulsion.

He was suddenly aware of the change; the chest against his fingers rose and fell quicker. He felt the breathing change, shakily, under his touch. His eyes slid to Malfoy, whose open gaze was tracing his face, lips parted. Harry felt a heat coarse through him, warm and violent, reckless. He ghosted his hand off his chest, without breaking the gaze, and let it barely skim Malfoy's prominent collarbone, tracing its length and floating over his neck. Malfoy shifted, broke the gaze and stared up at the ceiling, swallowing. Harry watched the muscles contract against his fingers, and skimmed a protruding vein. He could almost feel the stirring life, could see the pulse darting in the hollows on his neck. He ran his thumb down his pale throat.

Malfoy's lips moved slightly, ghosted an unuttered, silent word. But Harry could catch it. Stop.

Harry moved his hand off slowly, and watched Malfoy fight to compose his face. It revolted against him; fear and confusion and more, a wild mix played over his face. Harry felt mindless, brimmed to his eyes and lips and skin, in a rushing blur of heat and want.

When Malfoy had settled, he looked vulnerable and lost. Alone, as if he fought a raging war in his head, eyes blurred and wild and retreating further into himself. Harry felt a hollow ache, as he watched Malfoy, vulnerable and gone. He moved his floating hand, wanting to draw him back, and let it hover over Malfoy's lips, ghosting over his bottom lip. He saw Malfoy close his eyes when his fingers traced over the skin. They dragged lightly over his lips, felt their softness, their slight quiver. Malfoy was still, and parted his lips under his touch. Harry's pulse beat erratically, and felt a quiver of breath on his skin.

Malfoy turned his head toward him, so Harry's hand skated over his cheek and hovered at the angle of his jaw. He looked at Harry with bleary eyes, a grey haze, with something blazing raw underneath.

"You confuse me," he said, low and quiet.

Harry made a slight noise in his tight throat, an attempt at laughter. "I thought I was an open book." His thumb barely skimmed the angle of his jaw.

"That's what confuses me," said Malfoy, frowning slightly. He seemed to struggle to find words, and when he spoke it was barely audible. "You're so much."

Harry realised he was tracing Malfoy's mouth with his eyes, a blur of heat and flutter at his words, and locked eyes with him. Fear and flurry looked back at him, before Malfoy turned away.

"Talk about something else," he said. "I think your eyes could kill me."

Harry tried smiling, but felt it falter. He didn't want to let the moment drop, and shrivel to the floor as flat as them, but something in Malfoy's expression made him back away. "Okay." He felt untethered, and didn't know what to say, his mind an indecipherable blur. "What do you like to do in your free time?"

Malfoy looked at him like he was truly mad, but sighed. "Pollute myself, mainly. Who knows. Others too apparently."

"Think maybe I'm doing it of my own free choice?" said Harry, smiling down at him.

"That's far too crazy to understand."

"Nah," said Harry, lying back down flat on the floor, and stretching his arms in the air loosely. "Maybe you just don't want to understand."

Malfoy was quiet for a while. "Since when could you argue?" he said.

"What," said Harry, letting his arms drop with a thud. "You're kidding. Only since we've known each other?"

Malfoy hesitated, before laughing openly and Harry shifted to watch him. He laughed fondly at Malfoy, who was smiling wide and laughing to the ceiling uninhibited. Harry rested back, and sighed so every thought and tension left him, ebbed into the air. He was left scattered on the floor, warm and loose, feeling bodiless.


	17. Nestle

Words to say - Alex Szotak

* * *

Harry woke up, body stiff and locked, tense against a hard surface. He opened bleary eyes, and found himself against wooden floor, stretched out loose on his back and limbs spread. He raised his head, felt his stiff body protest and blinked hard, and saw the first streaks of dawn paint the open sky outside. A soft lilac and deep blue, trailing into the flat where some candles still burned soft, others burnt out. The place was still, a picture. Only disrupted by a light wind creeping over the floor, and small curls of smoke from a discarded cigarette on the floor, not quite put out.

He felt a presence, moving softly beside him, and looked over. Malfoy was lying flat on his chest on the floor beside Harry, head turned towards him and arm outstretched, body moving slightly with deep breathing. His lips were parted in sleep, and face lax and open. Harry felt a tingle of warmth, at his blurriness, messiness. Open edges and thoughtless, pale and drained out.

Malfoy's arm had stretched to Harry in sleep, curved at the elbow and curled into the nook under Harry's collarbone, between his chest and arm. Harry felt it against him, its inviting weight and warm pressure. Harry looked at the scene, as if from the outside, and let the night before come tumble in, through images and a raw sense of vulnerability.

Harry moved a slow hand, and swept back a tumble of white blonde hair that fell over Malfoy's face, quivering over his parted mouth. Malfoy's lips stirred, rounding a word. "Don't." Harry moved his hand away in surprise, peering across at Malfoy who looked lifeless and colourless, sunk into the floor.

His lips parted again, so indistinct it was barely audible. "Let's just pretend we're asleep." Malfoy stretched lazily, so his arm unwound and spread over Harry's chest where it hung loosely. It settled around his ribcage, possessively over him. Harry frowned slightly, thinking. In his hazy sleep-addled mind something raced and queried, but there was this warmth in his stomach, a blur of fuzz and comfort. So he closed his mind to it, let the haze cloud him.

"Okay," Harry mumbled. He rolled slightly, and curled his arm above him to rest his head against. Malfoy's resting arm skimmed over his stomach in Harry's roll, and settled on the dip of his waist. It clung to the fabric, gripping it gently, and hung there. Harry felt its warmth, its fragility, and drifted.

X

When Harry woke up again, he opened eyes to daylight streaking in. Bright and pale yellow, he squinted against it. He looked round; he was lying alone on the floor, where wine glasses and cigarette butts orbited him. But otherwise, a numb, still scene. Stretching up, he saw a pale figure stretched on the worn-out single couch on the terrace, fogged in a trail of smoke.

Harry shuffled over the floor, yawning and ruffling his hair. "Hey," he said, padding onto the terrace and smiling into sunlight.

He looked over, and Malfoy was smiling softly, a cigarette perched in loose quivering fingers by his side. He looked tired and glazed over. Peaches sat on a sheet of paper on the ground, with juice stains and bare pips like grooved stones. Malfoy held out a mug lazily to him, and Harry curled his hands around it, bringing the steam to his face.

"Sleep well?" said Malfoy, looking out to the street, a suggestive smile dancing at the corner of his lips.

"Well," said Harry airily, grinning. "I slept on the ground, if you can believe it."

"Imagine that," said Malfoy quietly. He took gentle sips of coffee. "Terrible hospitality."

Harry laughed. Malfoy looked affected, washed out slightly, but his face was soft and gentle. He turned his head away, and seemed to peer at something. "Oh, time for introductions." Harry looked over – a brown and black tortoise-shell cat was slinking around Malfoy's feet. It was thin and proud, but also young and soft, with glowing hazel eyes.

"Cat," said Malfoy declaratively. "Meet Harry."

"Cat?" said Harry, but that wasn't the name he reacted to. The cat squinted its eyes at Harry, moving sultrily around with a curling tail.

"Well, he doesn't have a name," said Malfoy, scratching him behind the ears briefly. "He's not mine. He's not anyone's really, he comes by sometimes when he figured out the doors are never closed and I'm as indifferent as they come and won't kick him out, and there are scraps around. Uninvited, a lone wanderer."

"Sounds familiar," said Harry, and knelt down to meet the cat eye-to-eye. They squinted at each other.

Malfoy rolled his eyes. "He and I, one and the same."

Malfoy spent the morning stretched out, sunk into the inside couch, with tired eyes and drifted. Reading, lounging, or half-asleep, or nothing, always something indulgent and emptying in his hands. Messy, decorating himself gradually with coffee stains and flecks of ash. Harry stripped his flat, looking between groves and details, holding up and spreading out intricacies. The cat pad around them, like a gentle shadow, nuzzling against their legs or watching with bright eyes. Harry held up things to the light, pulled things apart, fumbled through fingers – papery novels and dried skins of fruit and books and maps, wooden coffee grinders and metal woka pots, corks and decorate chipped mugs and ashy webs of brittle plants. Malfoy made blurry disapproving comments to the cat, scrutinizing Harry move around drowsily.

Apparently Malfoy didn't eat meals, as he made no attempt to get up as the day burned to afternoon, spread languidly and lifeless. So Harry made a mess of the kitchen, soaking spaghetti in hot water and attempted to make sauce from softened tomatoes. Red splash went everywhere, over his hands and bench tops and white walls in wild patterns. Harry moved actively around, fogging up the kitchen and fumbling with pots, while Malfoy looked asleep, eyes closed and still.

Harry shuffled over and sat on Malfoy's feet with two bowls in his hands, before Malfoy curled his legs under him and sat up. Harry held out a bowl, and Malfoy looked at it blankly. He blinked, unseeing. "What," he began, and blinked slow, "have you done."

"I'm being domestic. And you look like the walking dead."

"Domestic," said Malfoy, blank. He gestured to the cat, who blinked up at them. "I let homeless people sleep here but you go and make it domestic."

"Eat your damn food."

Eventually Harry got him to eat a little, before he settled down dramatically, as if dripping into oblivion. But overtime when Harry stretched, grew peaceful, he fell into a bout of restlessness and skimmed the surface of the floor in haste, light and untethered, holding books and cigarettes and doing many things at once.

X

Harry felt split again. But this time, between his public life and private life. Public, where he went to classes and ate in the Great Hall and sat in the common room, between his two friends. It was routine and convention, but he there was always this slow creep, like smoke, in his mind that dislocated him from the scene, took him elsewhere. And his private life, in solitude but not in solitude with Malfoy, in the library or his flat now. They revolved around each other for hours, without query or clarity, treading lightly and mostly in silence.

"Harry." He turned his head and met Hermione's gaze across from him, and from her expression knew that wasn't the first time she'd said his name. They were sitting at the Gryffindor table for breakfast, Harry sipping on black coffee slowly, a new habit, looking in the vicinity of the Slytherin table.

She held his gaze steadily. "Are you seeing someone?"

Ron looked at him, sitting next to Hermione, pulled into the conversation with a slight jerk of the head. Harry looked between them, at the table, at nothing, and pressed his lips together.

"No," he said eventually.

Hermione searched him, slightly narrowing her eyes, but looked soft. He knew she knew more than she let on. "But there's someone."

Harry hesitated. He didn't need to say anything, they could tell already, so he just said it. "There's –" he didn't know which words to use, none fit. "A someone."

They both watched him intently. He felt the word hover, tickle his lips, and it fell out unexpectedly. "Malfoy."

"What –" Ron's mouth fell open. "You're seeing Draco Malfoy?!" he blurted incredulously, loud and harsh so his voice bounced off the walls and echoed. It shot the air, killed the life of the Hall. They were met with total silence, as if time had frozen. Heads turned their way and Harry gaped and looked around, meeting several pairs of eyes as just about every person in the Great Hall stared at him.

"No –" but his throat was choked. "It's not like that." But Ron was gaping at him, and Hermione looked sort of sad and knowing. There was only one pair of eyes worth meeting, and Harry met them now.

Malfoy locked eyes with him and stared back in pure shock for a long moment, completely still, and Harry felt tar slide down his throat. Malfoy's gaze flickered around him slightly, and Harry noticed some people staring blatantly at him or whispering. He looked back at Malfoy, who met him with a softer, more resigned look. Withdrawing into himself, before he looked away. Harry felt something squirm uncomfortably in him, and only looked back when Ron shot out of his seat, tumbling over the bench and huffing as he strode out the Hall.

Harry met Hermione's sympathetic look but said nothing, and stood up to follow Ron.

"Ron," he said, once he got in reach of him to grab his arm and turn him, outside the Hall that was now erupting in urgent chatter. "Listen, it's not – that." Hermione came out the doors and watched them uneasily.

"So tell me," said Ron hotly, wide eyes moving between Hermione and Harry. "Because this is just insane."

"We're –" Harry hesitated. "I don't know, friends now. I guess." That sounded safe, even if he felt unsure about using it. But once he said it the word just sounded odd.

Ron stared at him. "The world's gone mad," he said and stomped off.

"Hermione." Harry couldn't help the slight pleading tone.

She looked back at him uncertainly. "You're … friends?" And somehow Harry knew it wasn't former-enemies-turned-friends idea that hung over her, but rather she was touching on something else entirely. Harry opened and closed his mouth.

Hermione smiled sadly, and took his hand. "Ron will come around." It seemed the only safe thing she thought to say, as he crinkled her brow timidly and let go, trailing after Ron.

* * *

I sort of figure they can't just leave doors and windows open in t-shirts from where they're from 24/7, but I'm from Australia so that's how it's going to be,  
Thanks for the sweet words you lovely people.


	18. Singe

fireplace, green glow plants. Limit to your love - James Blake

* * *

Harry found Malfoy sprawled on his bed in his small, shadowy bedroom of his flat, later that evening. Stepping over books, he walked in from the hallway, darkened by the night glow of dusk outside, where he had Apparated. Malfoy was lying on his stomach and scribbling delicately on withering paper, brow furrowed and a quill perched in long fingers. The long, intricate grey-streaked feather quivered as he wrote, as colourless as the fingers and the room.

Harry sat on the bed gently, looking at shadows on the wall and listening to Malfoy murmur to himself absently, uninterrupted. After a moment, Harry felt like smog, as stretched and languid as the shadows, and let out a long breath.

"What was Weasley blabbering about?" said Malfoy from behind him, soft and almost lost in his murmurs.

Harry didn't know how to say it, so he didn't. Eventually, he shifted around and stretched, so he lay back beside Malfoy on his back, and sighed. "I think my friends wonder where I go."

"Well," said Malfoy, and put down his quill, and Harry could see the back of his head at his own feet. "How does that make you feel?"

Harry smiled lazily at his bland tone, the hint of sarcasm.

"Is your new thrill with escapism beneath them?" continued Malfoy.

"I think they're just worried," said Harry.

"I wouldn't know." Malfoy stretched up fluidly, and sat facing Harry. Eventually, he looked at Harry and caught his frown. "I don't have any friends," he said, smiling slightly.

Harry laughed. "Yes you do."

"Sure, new Muggles and old habits," he said, drawing fingers through his hair, smiling absently at the idea. Until something flashed in his eyes and he frowned. "Apart from, well."

His eyes darted at Harry's chest once, pointedly, hands unfurling and weaving together.

Harry looked up at him and grinned. "Are we going to talk about it, then?"

Malfoy's lips twitched against his composed face and he looked away. "I plan not to," he said quietly. His eyes were hazy, brewing something as looked at the wall in thought. "I have a theory."

"Let's hear it," said Harry, sitting up on his elbow.

"You're a hallucination," said Malfoy vacantly. "Mind manifestation."

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Oh, really."

Malfoy nodded, amused. "My moral conscience, guiding me away from harm and tucking me in at night when I get drunk."

Harry looked at him in exasperation. "Right."

"Providing what I lack," he said, looking earnestly at Harry. "It's an important job."

"You lack a moral compass?" said Harry, amused.

Malfoy raised his eyebrows with a false air of seriousness. "You said so yourself. I'm chaotic."

Harry rubbed his hand over his face, smiling. "Okay. There couldn't be an answer that makes sense, of course."

"Not with me."

"Of course." Harry sighed.

Malfoy looked down at him in thought in the silence that followed. He frowned slightly. "You want answers."

Harry watched him for a while. Then, something formed in his mind and a slow grin grew on his face. "One question each."

After Malfoy smirked and rolled his eyes, Harry searched him with narrowed eyes, thinking. Malfoy raised his eyebrows. "Oh no, I feel a seriously important question coming," he said.

"Fine," said Harry, smiling slightly. "You go first."

Malfoy's face was blank, expressionless as he searched Harry. There passed several long moments, as he looked down at him and thought. His face was slightly shadowed, in the cold colour of the room without candles. Eventually, he bit his lip and looked away and seemed to not find the words, mouth opening and closing hesitantly.

"What scares you?" he finally said, except it sounded far too casual and automatic, as something else quivered in the air unsaid and heavy.

Harry frowned. "What scares me?"

Malfoy shrugged loosely. "What are you afraid of? I'm curious."

"Aren't you side-tracking?" he said, frowning at him, but he was so hard to read. The flash of a grin across his face confirmed it for Harry.

"Alright," sighed Harry, playing along. "Dementors. Loss. The unknown. Pain."

"Not death?" said Malfoy, noting the implication, the missing part.

"No," said Harry too quickly, and something black swarmed in his throat and being. He took a deep breath, unwilling to be pulled, swallowed, by memory and truth and blackness. "Well, yeah. But not really," he said, trying to sound casual but failing. "It's not so bad." He frowned in thought.

When he looked up at Malfoy eventually, he was looking down at him intensely, a crease between his brows and lips slightly parted. Harry flushed slightly at his implication, at his words, at how personal and real it sounded. He rubbed his neck awkwardly.

"Potter."

He looked back at Malfoy with telling eyes, he knew. Malfoy looked almost concerned, far too serious and open, and Harry sat up to turn away from him.

"I'm alive now," he said, but his voice betrayed him. "No need to worry." Nightmares, far too real, manifested in his mind. Licking like black flames and broiling him. Like hollow echoes, memories, but imprinted into him and brought to full life by the slightest scurry. He pinched the bridge of his nose, blinking hard, to hold against the inevitable spiral.

He felt a pressure, a hand against his back. Finger by finger, hesitant, to rest spread against him. Harry resigned into it, loosening, and felt it move gently across him and he closed his eyes. Like a weight, it tugged him back to his surrounds. He turned back around when the hand dropped.

Harry found he couldn't hold Malfoy's gaze; his eyes were far too understanding and knowing. He knew that Malfoy knew. That Harry had felt death and knew death, and was marked by it. The impermanent moment, lost in limbo or lying of the Forest floor, permanent on him.

"Who knows?" Malfoy almost whispered.

Harry hesitated. "Ron and Hermione. Ginny," said Harry, knowing he was confirming Malfoy's suspicions by answering. He looked up slowly, to see Malfoy's eyes widen slightly.

"Why did you –" Malfoy sucked lightly on his lower lip.

"Come back?" Harry looked tentatively between his eyes. Malfoy nodded lightly.

He thought, unsure. "You have to answer whatever question I can dream up after this," he said, and tried smiling. Malfoy smiled back in the dark but waited.

"Okay," said Harry quietly, rubbing his jaw in thought. "I could say duty. Responsibility. Purpose. The greater picture, and my role in it." He pressed his lips together, and felt shaky. "But … it's not as if they're wrong. It's just, they're flimsy. Something underpins them."

Malfoy watched him carefully, as if not understanding but also knowing too much and hesitant against hearing it. Harry looked away, at nothing.

"Love," said Harry. "People. You care."

Malfoy was quiet and unmoving for a long time, and Harry suspected he was pulled into his wrestling mind, circling around it, too absent to be here. But when he looked over, Malfoy was staring at him intently, grey open skies. Peeled back, at his surface. Harry's chest swelled at it, and he smiled slightly at him.

Before Malfoy unrolled his shoulders and resurfaced. He flipped out a cigarette and stuck it between his lips. "What's your question?" he said over it, and watched it light. "And spare me, please."

Harry felt a grin splay on his face, something wicked tickling his mind. "Nope. You walked into this."

He lay back on the bed on his back and smiled suggestively, thinking of how to articulate a loaded question. To ask him to reveal, the most he could.

"Should I be scared?" said Malfoy, sucking on the cigarette and watching Harry think.

"Maybe." Harry thought for a while longer. "Alright," he said, looking up at Malfoy. "Tell me. What you notice."

Malfoy raised an eyebrow at him. Harry continued. "You said you notice that you're noticing things, about boys."

"Good God," said Malfoy, exhaling a cloud. "Potter, you are far too curious about my sexuality."

Harry raised his eyebrows at his evasion, but his pulse danced.

Malfoy rolled his eyes and looked far away, eyes glassy in thought. Harry felt a thrill roll down his body, wondering what Malfoy was thinking or picturing.

"Okay," said Malfoy, a suggestive smile grew on his lips. "What I notice." He looked down at Harry slyly, who frowned back a little.

"I expect full commitment, Malfoy," said Harry, and a smile tugged at his lips.

But his confidence blew away when something dangerous danced in Malfoy's eyes. Malfoy's arm moved. His pale hand was suddenly at Harry's jaw, a finger slowly tracing the sharp angle, hard lines. Harry's throat stuck.

"I notice this," said Malfoy, in a low voice. He traced the line of Harry's jaw, and fingered the light stubble, hair tingling at the shift, before settling at his chin. His thumb skimmed his lower lip. "These," he said, quiet. Harry's lips shifted against his thumb, and he swallowed.

Malfoy's fingers trailed down his neck, as if in response, soft like flutters, and Harry's pulse beat wildly. His hand traced his shoulder, the breadth of it, and then lay flat around it, as if claiming it. "I notice these." Light fingers swept down his side, lingering on his ribs and feeling each jagged one, through Harry's shirt.

"I feel as if you lack detail," said Harry, voice catching. He was amazed at his own daring, when he felt at complete odds with it.

Malfoy laughed. He rolled his hand around Harry's arm, curled the length of his upper arm and tightened around his bicep. His arm jolted in response, a shiver of muscle tension. "Maybe I'm just demonstrating. Answering without words."

Malfoy's hand moved over his chest, fingers pressured down the line of his sternum and curling around his stomach. His fingers dancing around it, sparking ticks of heat and flush, before lying flat and pushing down against muscle, thumb stoking lightly. Harry didn't even attempt to mask his changed breathing, which moved his chest irregularly fast.

"That's just cheating," he said, breathing raggedly.

Malfoy slipped his hand under his shirt, and felt the lines of his hips, the protruding bone and hollow dips. He stilled, as if thinking. And then, so slowly, he traced the angles of his lower stomach that formed a V, back and forth and Harry felt weak and drunk. "Well, then I'm cheating," he said quietly.

Malfoy's fingers were now treading over the line of hair from his stomach down his pelvis. And Harry was undone, felt dissolved and wild and captive. He couldn't move, from under his touch, reduced to a burning body. Malfoy's fingers seemed to scatter electricity, burned like ice and cascading through him. From his skin, the touch, to his whole being until he melted. His fingers dragged across the edge of his jeans, the tips skirting under and sparking a fire and Harry thought he might die, lying there. Black out, or lash out, he wasn't sure.

Malfoy moved away, and loosely grabbed Harry's hand from his side, moving it to his face. Harry watched him consider it curiously, light fingers probing his wrist, the thin bones and soft flesh and drawing veins, and tracing up to his fingers, feeling the ridges and length. He looked truly absorbed, a crease between his brows, as if he had forgotten the point of this. Harry drew shaky breaths, but felt his presence was forgotten too. Malfoy moved the fingers to his mouth, against his lips, and encircled the tips of two fingers with soft lips. Harry felt a flicker of tongue against him, as he bit down gently on them.

"Fuck," blurted Harry.

"Yes?" Harry felt the rumble of voice against his skin. Malfoy's eyes shot to his, a wicked humour and curiosity shining bright in his wild eyes.

"Hmm?" Harry said lightly, as if nothing had happened. A faint grin tugged his lips, entirely distracted, watching Malfoy's mouth. Malfoy watched him, amused, and sucked lightly on his fingers, drawing them in further and tracing the skin with his tongue. He held them with his teeth, holding Harry's gaze, and he felt a hard jolt in his stomach as he bit down harder.

Malfoy let his fingers free, and held them up to his face to inspect the line of teeth marks. "Was that educational?"

"I said tell, not show," said Harry absently, heart racing, not exactly sure why he was protesting.

"Oh, you didn't enjoy it?" Malfoy met his eyes casually, but Harry knew he was testing him. Harry looked back just as determinedly. Malfoy sounded teasing, but there was a cruel edge to his voice and glare. But Harry felt transparent, as the rush of want and longing brightened his eyes, and Malfoy felt so solid and near, within reach, still holding his hand.

"I could have," he said. And it was all he could say, as Malfoy was looking at him dangerously and expectedly, as if waiting him to tip over and spill, surrender or fight. As if mocking him. Harry splayed his hand, so it spread through Malfoy's and lodged between his fingers, locking them together. He gripped it tightly in his, fingers dragging across the back of Malfoy's hand almost aggressively.

"Hungry, are you," said Malfoy blankly, his eyes clouded over. They looked dead, tired. Indifferent. Retreated and crawled back into a hole, within himself. Harry wanted to pull him back out, and dug his nails into Malfoy's skin. Malfoy grinned slyly and his eyes were mean, as if this is what he wanted. Something boiled in Harry's stomach, and he sat up so they were levelled, facing each other.

A single spark lit in Malfoy's dead eyes, a burn of competitiveness. His gaze flickered down to Harry's lips, align with his own and just a moment away. Harry dragged his nails against skin, heart beating angrily in his ears and lips and burning through his body, licking a harsh flame. Now even with him, Harry finally saw reaction from Malfoy, struggling against his own daring, level with his. Hard, stirring eyes were watching Harry's mouth.

"I dare you," Harry breathed. And he wasn't sure that if it happened he would win or lose but he waited with controlled, deliberate breathing and his nerves on edge and watched Malfoy's face erupt in a light flush.

When his gaze shot to Harry's, it was violent. Wild storms and depth.

And Harry was so sure in that moment he was about to be hit, attacked, or taken over and entangled – except Malfoy shot up, darted off the bed. He towered over Harry, looking down at him haughtily and Harry had a new appreciation for his height and power. This is how he challenged him then, by fucking over the game.

Malfoy left the room and Harry heard glass bottles clash and clink together. Harry sat in a blurry, heated daze. He slowly grew exhausted and drained, as if disillusioned to the whole scene and his wonder at it. Sitting alone, cast off, in a darkened stale room that smelt of Malfoy's damn cigarette still ebbing smoke on the floor. He speculated if Malfoy was getting drunk, and what lack of reason pushed him there.


	19. Pale

ginger, blue toes, The love you're given - Jack Garratt

* * *

Harry got his answer, in the days that followed. He travelled vacantly, drifting through routine. He walked through his public life, but felt hollowed through, as if left out in a cold storm, pushed out to drift through it. But it was him, really, that had stepped out into it.

He had lost their game. Harry moved from classes to the common room to the Great Hall and back again. Disconnected to it all, disconnected even to his own determination, as he broke ritual. He didn't go to see Malfoy, didn't search for him wedged between walls in the library, didn't pass through his flat.

He carried that stale feeling, disillusioned and numb, from Malfoy's bed room in the days that followed. Hunched him over like a weight, a heavy shadow. He suspected under the distinctly sober feeling, there was a slow fermenting anger. But mostly hurt.

Images sown into his body kept him captive. They played on an incessant roll in his mind. Of his own hands, tracing Malfoy's scars on his white body, open to him. Of Malfoy's eyes, looking back in wild fear and fury against the wall of his bedroom. Of his eyes again, anew, looking back at him soft and fragile, on the hard floor. His hand on Harry's back, trespassing into his romping nightmarish mind. His arm settled in sleep on him, possessing him. His intent, as he tasted Harry's fingers, face lost.

It was all so incredibly senseless and untameable. Under constant metamorphosis. And it ate Harry alive.

Harry noticed, as he was now always in public, that students watched him, turning their heads and whispered around him. At meals, they looked back and forth between him and the Slytherin table, where a figure always sat alone. He felt self-conscious in classes, when he felt every stare touch him at least once, if Malfoy was there. Ron shot him cautious looks, when Malfoy was anywhere in their vicinity and Hermione looked slightly troubled.

He was used to it, of course. But this was different, and he was entirely lost on how to respond, so he didn't. He knew that it was brought to the surface, and people were more than eager to respond explicitly, as a result of Ron's outburst. But it felt larger, deeper than just that, because of who they were, because of their past, and this year. Their absence from school life, their comfort with each other, rarely seen but still, real.

Ron had left to go to bed when Hermione shifted off the couch in the common room, to sit tightly against Harry on the floor. Cornered in by comfort, it was very private and she looked softly at him.

"Did we ruin it for you?" she said quietly.

Harry looked back at her, searching her eyes for anything that might make him hesitate. "I don't know," he said, after a while. "No, I don't think so."

Hermione looked gentle and concerned. "Harry," she said. And Harry knew he was going to give in, knew the relief that would follow but the realness of it shook him.

"We hang out," said Harry, tentatively. "A lot."

She nodded slowly. "You're always gone."

He scratched his neck awkwardly. "I'm always with him."

After a moment, he finally met her eyes again and she smiled back, a bit cautiously but sympathetic. "What's he like?"

Harry thought, but knew no words would fit. "Hm," he thought a little while longer. "A fucking disaster really." And Hermione laughed.

"But he's … everything. All at once," he said, vaguely smiling.

Hermione looked faintly surprised, and confused.

"I mean," he said quietly. "He's more than you'd think, then we'd known."

Hermione had a light frown on her face, searching him, so he continued. "He's soft," said Harry. "Gentle. And full of life, and bitter, and cruel, and sad, all at the same time."

"Okay," said Hermione. She hesitated, and put a hand on his knee. "And you … like him?"

Harry pressed his lips together, and met her eyes. He nodded slightly, and she nodded back. He felt a flush burn through him gently, but she looked happy and open.

"I don't want to tell Ron, just yet," he said softly.

"That's okay," she said, and took his hand, smiling. "So what's his place in this?"

Harry knew from her raised eyebrows what she was touching on. "He, um … likes boys. Too."

She squeezed his hand and searched him. "Has anything happened? Or happening."

Harry frowned, when the recurring images rolled through his mind again. He laughed faintly. "I'll let you know if I ever know."

Harry was resolute against working with Malfoy, for reasons he sometimes did and sometimes didn't understand, but by the end of the week couldn't ignore their assignment. He had been bringing out books and sheets, searching them but mainly just constantly rearranging them, on the floor of the common room with no luck.

So it was when the sun had set, that Harry made his way across the dampened grounds under a cool purple sky, with a bag full of assignment. He Apparated into a dark, musty hallway and was instantly met with a harsher smell. Like night time and rain, smoke and liquor, but all not quite the exact flavour he remembered. Foreign people and places that hung on the air like a guest.

Harry paused, suddenly feeling uninvited. He halted in the doorway of the bedroom – the covers were strewn messily and greyish flecks powered them. On the floor liquor bottles rolled and a single slick martini glass stood on the side table. His throat bubbled and he wanted to laugh at it – the picture was sad and messy and corrupt, but the glass was so refined and dainty, positioned neatly with crystal clear liquor still and encased. Harry felt a slow drop in his stomach, like an ache, looking around the dead scene and he felt weakened.

Harry stood over empty, tall glass bottles sprawled on the floor and pinched the long stem between fingers, holding it up to his eyes. The liquor quivered slightly, but held form, pure and clear and untainted. He could teeter it, let it creep to the edges, if he dipped his wrist, let it slide and wobble. The rampant liquid, held together only by insignificant glass, held its same cold horizontal cut as he moved the glass around with slow fingers. He watched it with deadened eyes. He could just drop it, let it smash into fractures, and it would hardly matter. But instead he slowly replaced the glass, where it disowned the otherwise deceased scene, on the table.

He felt a bit like that, held together by fragments of matterless matter – but so full and pure and spilling over in form. So he spilt, and crept over and slid onto the bed. Climbing in like a child, smooth slept-in sheets caressed him and he let his body resign into them, and drifted off into the dark.

X

Harry woke up to a touch on his shoulder blade, moving against him warm and gently. He craned his stiff neck around, eyes hazy and met a grey pair. Malfoy lay next to him, perched on his elbow, eyes bright and open. The room hard gotten darker, the shadows more potent, climbing up them both.

"So," said Malfoy, soft and humoured. "I came home from the café and found a mop-haired boy in my bed."

Harry blinked slowly, trying to clear his surrounds but felt blurry, immersed in sheets in the dark. "Wha –"

"Hold on, story time," said Malfoy. "I thought about it, thought maybe I should start charging you rent." Harry frowned faintly at him. "Then thought about just going the way I came, out the door and pretend I saw nothing. Then I thought of ignoring you and sinking myself drunk."

"Are you?" said Harry low, and cleared his throat. "Drunk."

"Maybe," he said, looking away. "But no."

Harry rubbed his hands over his face and stretched, resting on his arm under his head and lay on his back to look up at Malfoy. "What did you conclude?"

Malfoy smiled down at him. "Answers are boring. It's questions which are interesting."

"Which we already do constantly."

Malfoy laughed. "Alright. Here's another one, do you want to come out tonight?"

Harry looked between his eyes. "What."

Malfoy looked amused. "I'm meeting friends, Muggles. So we'll have to act in cognito. We're going to a bar couple of streets over."

Harry searched him, frowning. Malfoy just raised his brows and looked at him, amused. "Alright," said Harry finally.

Malfoy nodded slowly, a grin flickering, and spoke quiet, "Alright, then."

As night burned on from deep blue to black, Harry watched Malfoy bounce around the room and clink bottles together, darting up clothes from the floor to inspect them, while smoke trailed from his mouth forgotten. Harry lay as if numb, lidded eyes, a hazy thought sometimes propping up that he was avoiding Malfoy for some distant reason. But he just spread like the sheets on the bed.

"Since when do you wear colour?" said Harry later, eyeing a bright blue shirt.

"Glad to know you're still stalking me," said Malfoy, turned away from him and holding up a pair of black jeans. "It's not mine."

"Oh," said Harry, something cold and slippery sliding down his throat. A faint image – of Malfoy's pale arms ripping it off another boy's body in urgency, in this very room – lit in his mind and he shook his head firmly to clear it. He suddenly felt very aware of his own body, spread on the bed. Comfortable a moment ago, now a stranger.

He focused just enough to see Malfoy slide a black t-shirt over his pale back, muscles stretching and growing tightly in succession as his arms folded, and Harry's body jolted.

"Um," he said, clearing his throat. "Whose is it?"

"Too curious, as usual," he said vacantly, sighing. "I don't ask about your sex life, Potter."

"Hm," he said lightly, but felt hollow. For something to do, other than stare and feel as insignificant as the spread sheets around him, he shifted over and picked up the martini glass, swirled around the clear liquor hypnotically. He hardly noticed Malfoy move, to stand in front of him, now wearing black jeans.

Malfoy capitalized on Harry's move, by sweeping up a loose bottle and sinking it down his throat. Eyes gleaming, nose wrinkled and coughing, he raised his eyebrows expectantly at Harry. When Harry brought the glass to his lips, to replace it back delicately, Malfoy looked down at him, lips tight in sly humour.

Harsh flames licked his insides. So Harry, dislodging himself from the insignificant sheets, stood and snatched the bottle. Surprising even himself, he opened his throat, sinking torrents of burning liquor down, gagging slightly. But determinedly drained it.

Malfoy's eyes were wide in shock. Harry blinked hard, a swell of dizziness assaulting him until he swayed slightly. Malfoy opened his mouth, to close it again. "Well," he said faintly. "Forever trying to one up me."

"Sounds about right," said Harry recklessly, voice hoarse, and Malfoy's eyes narrowed briefly. Before he lazily exhaled smoke onto him, and turned away to drift out the room.

"Come on," Harry heard, moving away down the hallway. "I'll cook up a concoction."

And he did. Making splash and powder in pools as he moved energetically around the kitchen. The drink was small and dangerous – a neat glass, cool brown with a thin cover of froth, promising something reckless in its simplicity.

It was bitter and burned, like burnt coffee and white liquor, delicious and brewing, and Harry got a wild unconscious idea this is what Malfoy would taste like.


	20. Affix

pearl clouds, slick black road. Cruel World - Lana Del Rey

* * *

They had Apparated a few streets over, Malfoy swinging around like a pendulum, loose and light, flexing his arms and hands around, through his hair and tangling them together. He burned through cigarettes and watched the starry sky, taking contemplative swigs from a wine bottle he passed between them. Harry let the wine settle like fuzz, on his tongue, and walked in a haze.

Except something lingered, an itch. Tickling the back on his mind uncomfortably, probing him with sharp scratches amid a string of images – a bright blue shirt, his own hand clawing another, Malfoy's narrowed eyes, draining a bottle to meet shocked eyes. A needling desire, to assert himself. To not fade and scatter, like the ash and withered paper and coffee stains. Permanent and present.

At the bottom of hidden stairs leading down off the street, Malfoy held open a black wooden door, paint chipped and faded, for Harry. He frowned slightly. It felt so secluded and private, as if accidental. Malfoy raised his eyebrows, a light flicker in his eyes.

They walked into a dark bar that felt underground and oppressively contained. Black brick walls and corners and crowds, it bordered and revolved around itself tightly with low ceilings, but large spaces. Artificially lit with warm colours, reds and yellows, with walls plastered with bright or fading posters, newspapers and photographs, overlapping and peeling. It seemed entirely comprised of a long bar that disappeared around a corner, tight walkways, and a larger space where small mass danced. Faded curtains sectioned off alcoves, and worn couches were tucked on walls and in corners everywhere.

It felt very private and intimate; it felt very anonymous.

Harry felt a tight hand encase his shirt, twist on his chest. "Shots," Malfoy announced to the air. But they barely made it to the bar when Malfoy was jerked back, arms encircling him.

"Draco!" It was Lee from the cafe, eyes bright. She wore silver eye glitter that twinkled like glass, and her chin length raven hair fell over her face as she laughed.

"You are radiant, Lee, as always," said Malfoy, slightly choked as she pulled him down into a tight hug. He smiled and gestured sideways. "This is Harry."

"Ah, latte," said Lee, winked at him.

Harry grinned. "Nice to meet you, Lee."

"Coffee is her only form of recognition, apparently," said Malfoy, rolling his eyes.

"It's your only form of anything," said Harry, unable to resist, and Malfoy looked sideways at him, lip twitching.

Lee laughed and weaved her arm through Harry's. "I like you already." She pulled him to the bar as Malfoy protested loudly, arms waving, to not encourage him.

Lee bought the first round of shots, electric blue, and passed them on with elevated importance, as if bestowing them. It dripped bittersweet down Harry's throat, like sap. Malfoy waved another in his face insistently, opaque black and dangerous, his face lit powdery purple. Harry shook his head in laughter, and did it back a moment after with spiced rum like vanilla, so it almost splashed on his smirk. Lee's nose crinkled when she laughed, as Malfoy always looked down at her in disbelief or sarcasm, but a smile so fond and sweet that Harry's chest pinched. Lee was trying to convince Malfoy to buy a bottle of wine, but he pulled one out of nowhere, eyes gleaming wickedly. Harry shook his head slow again, stifling laughter as Lee's eyes grew wide, and grabbed them both in euphoria. "Just like magic!". Malfoy winked at his silent laughter.

It didn't take long – Harry felt warmth creep fuzzily through him, his chest and limbs. Thin cloud cover over his eyes, heavy head on his palm at the bar. A bubble swelled from his stomach, tickling his insides, hazy smile lingered. Malfoy stood over him, buying drinks religiously without seeming to ever order or pay, leaning lazily. Laughing too loud in Harry's ear or teasing him and handing him drinks, or else too vacant, burning through cigarettes, while Lee circled Harry in colourful chat. With a hand that kept returning, pressing absently, against Harry's lower back. He didn't seem aware of it, but Harry definitely was. When Malfoy grabbed Harry's hand possessively to bring Harry's drink to his own smirking lips, and Lee looked between them, something like delight in her eyes. Harry couldn't stop smiling.

They were on a worn-out couch, Lee talking animatedly between them while Malfoy and Harry passed a bottle of cheap wine between them, watching each other take longer swigs each time. Like a slow, silent game, daring the other with teasing eyes that warmed Harry's chest, while Lee gibbered on oblivious. Harry swung it back violently for the longest pull yet, and Malfoy finally cracked, watching, to laugh unreservedly and loud, when a voice called. "Lee!"

Lee sprung up happy, to meet a girl with long fawn hair and freckles and pulled her in to feather-light kisses over her face, giggling in delight.

"So," said Malfoy, and Harry turned back, a fond smile still on his face at the intimate scene. Malfoy smiled at him, then shifted over to fill the gap, tucking a foot under his leg, so his knee sat on Harry's legs. He leaned in, with full eyes. Of light humour and deeper grey swirls. "Why were you on my bed?"

Harry looked at him and thought, chest tickling, then held back his smile. "Got tired."

"Right." Malfoy slowly wrapped his fingers around the wine bottle, and placed it on the floor. He held his gaze carefully. "Is that it."

"Are they together?" Harry said distractedly, looking over but not really seeing the girls.

When he looked back, Malfoy was watching him, as if expectant. But Harry merely smiled faintly. After a while, Malfoy body sighed slightly, his knee resigning into Harry's thigh distractedly. The hot liquor humming through his system didn't help. "Yeah. Are you disappointed?"

Harry raised his eyebrows, before understand his meaning and laughed. "No."

Malfoy nodded slowly, smiling crookedly. "Not interested?"

Harry shook his head and smiled to himself, looking away. "Nope."

"Well," said Malfoy, leaning back slightly. "Maybe we'll find someone for you."

"Is that what you've been doing this week?" he said mindlessly. He pressed his mouth together tight, but his limbs felt too loose and his head fogged, bloodstream moving uneasily, tingling.

Malfoy was quiet. Harry met his gaze, and he looked back curiously, closed to him. Harry felt a trickle of shame, of vulnerability, but it was shortly overtaken but damn stinging itch in his mind. He felt reckless, that need to assert himself.

He moved his hand, loose beside him, to Malfoy's knee resting against him, skimming his black jeans to settle there. "Have you?"

"Have I what?" said Malfoy low, eyes on his hand.

"You know," said Harry.

Malfoy narrowed his eyes slightly at him. The grey was dark, stirring. "I want to hear you say it."

Harry stared back, and couldn't. He dropped his gaze, but found himself just looking at Malfoy's leg instead. "Is it because of me?" he heard himself say.

Malfoy inhaled sharply. "What." Harry flicked his gaze up, saw open shock in his grey eyes. Malfoy frowned, eyes intent. "Why –"

"You were angry," said Harry. "You act out."

Malfoy just watched him. "And why," he said slowly, "should I tell you about my private life? You didn't answer."

Harry closed his eyes and breathed deep. They were so petty, forever a damn pendulum swinging back and forth, in humour or malice or anything. Harry felt that sear again itching his mind, and looked back at him.

"I was in your flat," he began. "Your bed." But he didn't know what to say, faltered. He watched his hand and frowned lightly. "I don't know, I didn't think about it."

After a moment, Harry felt something leave him, seep out, and he resigned slightly.

"I wanted to be there," he said, quiet.

Malfoy was silent. Too still, and Harry was convinced after a while he'd lost interest, given up.

"Harry."

Malfoy spoke low and Harry looked up quickly, and met his eyes. Harry parted his lips, as if to speak, but couldn't, watching him.

Malfoy searched Harry, both waiting and careful. They grew softer, and Harry's chest melted into his blood and limbs in a slow warm spread. He felt a touch; Malfoy placed his hand over his, and Harry felt it quiver lightly. His fingers traced him feather-light, as if hesitant to commit to the action. Harry shifted against his skin, and nestled a finger over his pale pinkie.

"Draco!" Harry saw his eyes widen slightly, before his head snapped behind him. He stood up abruptly, pulling his hand away, to part the crowd and meet someone. A boy with dark hair and eyes, a wide easy smile. Thick stubble, with two hastily painted red crosses over his cheeks, and Harry frowned. Malfoy ducked his head to talk intimately with him, and between fractures of people Harry could see a hand on his back. Something seared surprisingly harsh, hot and bloody, in Harry's stomach and tightened his throat. At the casual grip of the boy's hand, smile wide, tugging Malfoy towards him to listen.

"Harry?" He looked over, at Lee who was moving around him, to sit where Malfoy had. The girl with fawn hair sat on her other side, looking around the bar happily. Lee watched him curiously. "You alright?"

Harry tried a smile. "Yeah. Who's that?"

Lee looked over and saw the boys talking, and turned back biting her lip. "Are you and Draco …?"

Harry blinked, and something registered. "Oh, no. No. I –" He frowned slightly, the damn liquor swirling his head.

Lee watched him uncertainly, and the girl holding her hand suddenly leaned in. "Draco? You're Harry, right?" Her amber eyes sparkled. "He likes you, you know."

What? Harry jerked back, "What?"

She smiled sweetly. "Yeah, I work with him. You're the only thing we know about his boarding school."

Lee looked like she was stifling laughter. "Nah, I reckon he wants to be him. This is Ava, Harry."

"Nice to meet you," he said, smiling but his mind was far away.

"You, too. Not envy," said Ava lightly. "No vice there. I think hate or love."

"Oh, hate's not a vice?" said Lee, wrinkling her nose. "But who knows." She looked at Harry sympathetically. "We know Draco. Every colour of the rainbow."

"But not indifferent," said Ava, smiling at her. "I think that's a safe bet."

Lee laughed in light bubbles. "My God, definitely not."

Harry was still frowning vaguely, mind spinning, when Malfoy returned, the other boy floating in the background near the bar. Ava kissed him on the cheek and pulled him onto the couch. The girls talked with exaggerated gestures and loose mouths, overlapping each other in excitement and making grand plans for the night that didn't make total sense, while Harry frowned at Malfoy. Malfoy seemed to avoid his gaze, rolling his eyes at them in disbelief, but finally sighed and nodded to their expectant bright smiles. They darted up off the couch and kissed him, then practically ran to the bar, buzzing round like moths.

Malfoy drew fingers through his hair, looked once at Harry's chest. Before perching on the edge of the couch, near him. "We're going back to mine," he said, looking nowhere, rolling his fingers. "They want to continue the night, but I'm translating that. They want mayhem and will trash my sad home."

"Oh," said Harry, not knowing what to say. The boy was leaning back relaxed on the bar, and cast a look at them, as if waiting. He wondered if he was going with Malfoy.

When Malfoy stood, Harry did too. He paused, then mumbled to Harry. "Give me a moment."

Harry watched him walk over and talk quietly in the dark haired boy's ear, whose easy grin slid off slowly. He shrugged loosely, and shot Harry a look before disappearing into the crowd.

"What was that?" said Harry, when Malfoy returned, noticeably more relaxed. Malfoy placed his hand at his lower back, and steered him through the crowd.

"A daring escape," he said, weaving through people and flicking out a cigarette. "Told him you were my boyfriend."

Harry gaped. Malfoy looked over, moving around someone, and smirked at his reaction, exhaling smoke. "Play the role, category, for once?"

Harry laughed unwillingly. "Boyfriend." Such a chandelier of a word, shiny and big. He arched back and grabbed Malfoy's hand on his back, weaving their fingers together. This didn't feel eerie or shiny.

"Lord Almighty," sighed Malfoy, but could catch the humour dancing in his eyes as Harry laughed freely and held tight.

They stood out in the night, hands unlocking for Malfoy to smoke, light mist drifting around them lit by silvery streetlamps. Lee and Ava were spinning fast in circles on the road, heads to the sky and giggling wildly. "Mad," said Malfoy, watching them and shaking his head. "Turns out you were unsuccessful tonight, but at least you're not going home alone."

Harry raised his eyebrows, watching him carefully, but Malfoy didn't acknowledge him, smiling at the girls and ebbing slow smoke. He felt a hand on his elbow, and looked down to it but Malfoy looked forward, and spoke quiet. "Come with me."

Harry watched him, but his face was unchanged, distant with a light smile. Harry felt nostalgic, but something felt more levelled this time. Deliberate, soft.

Ava spun wild and tumbled over to them, arms spread. She grinned brightly, toppling, and thread her hand through Harry's, bumping into him.

"Hello, crazy," said Malfoy. "Hands off, he's the boyfriend of the evening."

Lee stumbled over and threw her arms around Ava, so her legs flailed in the air while she laughed hysterically. "Big word, Draco," mumbled Lee, but Harry just caught it.

"I completely understand if you plan to go home and pretend you never met these people," said Malfoy, in a false air of seriousness.

"I'm coming." Harry cleared his throat, he had sounded far too determined. "I'll come."

"Well," said Malfoy, and hesitated. He smiled slightly at the night. "Alright, then."


	21. Leon

lavender grey, dark undereye shadow, Leon - Alt-J

* * *

At his flat, Malfoy opened a bottle of wine passed it around communally. Ava and Lee flit around like birds, upturning stacks of books and rummaging around like a dance. They sampled every single one of his bottles in a line, and tipped over the balcony, voices echoing down the street.

Malfoy drifted around like a pale shadow, against walls or tucked in corners, smiling vacantly and always something in his hand, dripping on the floor. And Harry was this soft, bleary thing, the everlasting smile making his cheeks ache. The flat felt yellow and full with people in it.

Lee teased and laughed, teaching Harry everything coffee, and fumbling with pots and mugs, powder and stains cascading around them while she giggled. Malfoy leaned on the counter and watched, amused, probably because Harry was doing everything wrong and when he looked up, caught the sly shake of his head.

Ava lay with her long long fawn hair fanned on the floor. "You can't be our friend Harry, sorry."

Lee resigned with a sudden tumble, everything falling to the bench from her hands. "I give up." She pat Harry on the arm, and went over and stood over Ava, leaning down so her fingertips tickled her face and they laughed.

"Prerequisite," said Malfoy quietly. He sunk his hands into dark powder, and smiled up at Harry. He drifted his coated hands over Harry's hands perched on the counter, painting them. "You've failed." Harry raised his eyebrows and smiled a little, and his pale hands now ran over his forearms, rough grains running against his skin, and drew small patterns.

"Thanks," said Harry, pulse quickening, watching his arm. "Pretty." The soft tracing fingers felt hypnotic, grinding slow against his skin.

The girls had fallen in a heap on the couch, head to tail and talked softly, while Malfoy ghosted around slowly, smoking. Harry could feel him, like a magnetic pulse, move around the place, in and out of his orbit. When he drifted closer, moved around or brushed against him, Harry felt this hum coat his skin and fill his ears, pulsing and loudening.

Lee led Ava by the hand to the balcony, where they curled up on the single couch and pointed at the sky with lazy arms. Harry felt himself grow more still, drawn in the sudden quiet of the room, the lone moving figure the only thing to disrupt the still peace. As well the chaos inside him, this overwhelming roll in his stomach that swarmed around and around him, pulse beating in his ears.

Malfoy strolled vacantly down the hallway, and Harry felt himself move off the bench unconsciously. Following, like a shadow. He was walking, body heavier and drunker than he felt, and mind drifting. Malfoy was turned away, head tilted to the roof and hand skimming the hallway wall as he walked. And Harry moved slow behind him. Pacing, to match his pace. The darkness of the hall slipped over them, swallowed them in tight borders.

He reached out a hand, tentative, and saw it barely skim Malfoy's loose hand at his side. Malfoy slowed his pace at his touch, splayed his hand against the wall, and stopped. His head dropped to the floor, and his body seemed to resign, breathing low. Harry's fingers traced up, to the hollows of his wrist and lightly probe the fragile skin, pulse darting dangerously over his skin. Before wrapping surely around it.

Malfoy was still, unmoving. Harry tugged him back lightly – but he whipped around, pulled free, and met Harry's eyes. A spark, suddenly brought to life, brought out of his haze. His eyes were stormy, hard in the dark. He grabbed Harry's shirt at his stomach, as if reflexively, and then loosened slightly, looking at his own hand. "You stayed away this week," he said, and he seemed mixed. A muddle of accusation or confusion or hurt, in the tiny darts under his composed face.

Harry swallowed, heart beating hard at the proximity. "I know." He moved his hand in the space between them, drew it tentatively against Malfoy's chest, and laid it flat.

"You were a mess," said Harry, and he swept over his stiff upper arms lightly, before curling around them to tug him closer, to enter his space, felt them tense against him. Malfoy's body felt very alive, close to him.

"Is that what you did this week?" he said quieter.

Malfoy's face twisted, his hard eyes flashed – burning anger and fear. They flickered down to his mouth. "Say it."

Harry looked carefully between his eyes. "Did you just fuck around," he said, slow. "Get drunk and fuck boys?"

Malfoy's eyes burned wicked, cruel and direct at him. Harry stiffened, leant back – but something broke in the grey. A quiver, like light, dampened them. Soft.

"I –" said Malfoy, lips parted, a sudden frailty in his face. "I didn't even know who he was." His voice faltered, quiet.

Harry swallowed, feeling a slow ache crawl through him. He grazed Malfoy's chin, wanting to draw him in, and tilted his head up slightly to see him.

Malfoy shook his head slightly, eyes stirring before meeting his. They didn't seem to see Harry at first, a thin cover like reflective glass. But as Harry's finger traced his jaw, the clouds cleared slightly. He watched Harry, almost timidly, eyes moving over his face intently. An iridescent light looked at him through confused mess of clouds. Timid, white and pure.

Harry's arms quivered as he drew over Malfoy's bottom lip with his thumb, settling in the corner, and ducked his head close, watching them and didn't look up. His breath trembled over Malfoy's lips, and his own met his tentative thumb, slid gently onto soft lips.

He felt softness, mouldable and yielding, and a quick tremble slid the groves of skin against him, and his heart jolted. Life and quiver, under soft web of skin. Barely a breath, ghosting over Malfoy's lips and he felt the light pressure leave.

Malfoy leaned heavily, sunk his head low into his shoulder. He shook slightly; his body sighed, grew lax. He had grabbed Harry's waist with firm arms, so Harry was pressed into the hard wall against his back, with Malfoy sagged and clung into him. Harry tilted his head as if to search his face, brushed back blonde hair softly, and didn't know what to think. Malfoy was shaking his head slightly, quivering with a light hum. He seemed contained, in his head or struggle, yet spilling softly into surrounds, into Harry, like a seeping willow. Harry clung on tight.

There was a still, tired moment. And Malfoy's face shifted slightly, moving against his neck and Harry could feel a quick flicker of breaths. Darting across him like gentle taps, stopping his own breathing. Harry felt pressure as the grip on him tightened, and he pressed soft lips against his neck lightly. Harry tensed, a glimmer of electric ticks stung him, halting him there. Malfoy's hands splayed on his hips tightly, slowly but then surely, strongly grasping him. He pressured him against the wall, and pressed against him, his body full and flat and his mouth skimmed along his skin. He felt a light kiss, like wings, and Harry's breath caught.

And the axis tipped – the mouth was hot on his neck, lips melted against his skin, and Harry gasped, drawing fingers through Malfoy's hair to hold him there. Malfoy kissed his neck urgently, hard and flush, long and wielding to him, and Harry made an indistinct throaty sound as his eyes fluttered shut. He felt hands draw under his shirt, cling to him and bring them closer, and Harry couldn't breathe, pressed against his hard body. Lips fumbled and sunk, light stings or hot bloody bruises against his skin, and he felt flickers of wet tongue.

He felt a mumble, but Harry was far away in bliss, clinging Malfoy to him desperately in the warm flush that spread over his skin, through his body. Mumble again, more distinct. "Stop."

Harry leaned his head further back, and in the mess, he felt teeth trace lightly across his neck. Little slices of teeth like pins, pauses to nibble gently, and he exhaled sharply. Then a bite amid a hot kiss, and Harry gripped his hair too hard, breathing hard.

"Make me stop." Malfoy mumbled against him, lips sliding and moving towards his jaw and under his ear, nails dug into his lower back. Harry shook his head indistinctly, tugging him closer and splaying his neck wider. Malfoy grew more insistent, tonguing him and biting relentlessly and Harry heard a groan from his own throat, angling him close with snatches of hair.

"Make me." More distinct. Harry held him against his skin, breathing erratically as Malfoy moved to the hollows of his collarbone, tracing a light tongue, and mouth pressing hard and urgent amid shuddered breathing. Harry was enwrapped in his scent, choked on it, in earthy notes, spices and wood. Heavy and warm, clothed lightly with a dangerous tinge of smoke and liquor.

"No," Harry breathed. Malfoy bit hard, on his soft neck and Harry cried out, before coating it with his tongue and sucking gently. Harry, panting, gripped his hair and angled him to the other side of his neck, where Malfoy drew a line of kisses before planting, sucking hard. He withdrew, kissing behind Harry's ear, a slice of teeth snagging his earlobe. Heat, in trails of flames licking and flaring Harry's body, broiled him.

"Tell me," a low breathy murmur in his ear. Harry retorted immediately, pressing back on the wall and wrapping his ankle around his, so his legs parted slightly and he could pull Malfoy tight against him.

"No." Harry was making throaty sounds as Malfoy patterned his jaw with hot, open kisses and breaths and wet licks. Nails digging even tighter so Harry grunted low, his hands releasing his hair and swerving round Malfoy's waist possessively and urgent, to pull his hips flush and hard against his and Malfoy made a low noise.

"God damn –" And the pressure lifted, off completely. Harry blinked back streams of light and colour, a dizzy swirl, to see Malfoy fly back, slam into the opposing wall.

"Fucking –" Malfoy was breathing hard, eyes wild and dark. He looked at Harry, face flushed, and a fury grew. "Control your gay ass." He leaned heavily on the wall, chest moving heavy.

Harry couldn't breathe, throat tight. "I'm not –" His whole body a flickering ember set alight and broiling.

Malfoy looked at him, eyes flashing, frowning heavier. "Could have fooled me."

"No," Harry breathed, voice hoarse, and swallowed hard. "I like girls too."

Malfoy was suddenly still. Harry blinked to see him better, and he was staring at him with slightly widened eyes under a heavy brow. They burned a lightning storm at him, grey and furious and wild.

"You –" Malfoy's eyes raged, flickering around his face. Settled on his eyes. "So you do like boys, then," he said, quieter.

Harry hesitated, and rubbed his tight chest. "Yeah."

Malfoy searched him closely, a myriad of movement in his open eyes. "Since when."

"I didn't know," said Harry, not sure where he was going with that. His jaw twitched.

Malfoy didn't stop staring, so Harry flicked his gaze down. "Recently?" he heard.

Harry nodded, and saw a flash in Malfoy's eyes when he caught his gaze, of realisation or understanding.

"Oh."

Harry couldn't look away, his pulse quickening again and he pressed his lips together. Malfoy had sounded weak, and he had nothing to say to him. Could say nothing, as his body was turbulent but mind a blinding haze. He knew. That Malfoy knew.

Malfoy looked away, blinked. He was still for a long while, and Harry felt his lips and jaw quiver. Malfoy bit his lip, curled his hands around the air and rolled his shoulders. Before he straightened up.

"Well, if you're curious, or whatever. We aren't doing this," he said, looking once at Harry. "We're already fucked up enough as it is."

Harry frowned, confused. "I don't –"

Malfoy's eyes met his, direct. "Go experiment with someone else."

Harry's lips parted in surprise. "What?" His mouth opened and closed, mind spinning. "That's not –"

Words failed him. And Malfoy just stared at him, jaw tight. "Muggles," he said tightly. "Blaise, even. You've already done that."

Harry was shaking his head indistinctly, frowning.

His voice grew hollow. "Anyone. But –" Malfoy looked away, before Harry saw a flicker in his face, like trembling wings.

Malfoy looked at the floor, eyes distant. He moved further back, skimming the wall, sliding like a shadow and slipped into his room. Leaving Harry alone, frowning at nothing.

He stood there in the dark for eons. Had slid to the floor, head against the wall, at one point. A pattern unfolded in his mind on and on, of Malfoy's anger and words, of Harry daring to expect something else, a chaotic mesh of hot lips and skin, and none of it made sense to him.

Only when he jerked, reflexively tugged his head back up, did he realise he was sliding into sleep. There was one single, revolving, match lit in his head fog. The break, in Malfoy's composure, a flutter of wings. It seemed the only real thing, amid it all; his tremble, against the weight of it.

Harry got up finally, and shuffled around the flat with tired eyes, aimless. Stood still, and kept pacing. Stood again. His feet buzzed, with a question, ready to move.

He walked, and was still at the bedroom doorframe. The room was still littered, with hollow bottles and ash. Malfoy was flat on his stomach, stretched on the bed, head turned away. He looked asleep, chest rising slow, swallowed by black shadows and clothes.

Harry crept over, slid on the sheets slowly like liquid. He drew up, and held himself loosely. Arms around knees, looking down tentatively at the still figure, head on his knees. He raised a hand, let it drift over Malfoy's back. It drew a light tear trail.

Malfoy drew back drearily, stretching around to peer at Harry with sleepy eyes. Looking him over, he rolled onto his back and lay flat, eyes reflective in the dark.

Head resting, Harry drew the back of his finger down his cheek, lingering on his jaw, watching his eyes slowly clear. He dislodged himself, and slipped soft onto his stomach, untangling to pool onto the bed, and looked across to meet his eyes, level. Harry's face blended into the sheet, half hidden.

They looked at each other, light and soft. They were cut into a small slice of total privacy, close together and closed to all else in the dark. Malfoy's bleary grey looked curiously at him just a moment away, and Harry shifted his hand a little, to trace his upper arm lightly.

He mumbled soft. "I'm staying."

Malfoy watched him, eyes stirring, and Harry drifted his hand over his chest, to gather his waist and draw him in. Harry slid slowly against him, warm bodies moving over each other like lips, and ducked into his neck. He buried into warm, tantalizing scent; old papery dust, and smoky rich earth. Like a well-handled book, and airy herbs and ash.

Malfoy exhaled slowly. "What the fuck are we doing?" he said after a while, quiet and slurred slightly.

Harry smiled into his warm neck. "Pretending we're asleep?"

Malfoy groaned slightly, and Harry felt his head tilt into him, pressed against his hair. "I can't think. I can't think."

Harry breathed deep, rounded his hold on him. His nose slid against warm skin, and he nestled there.

"So don't."


	22. Foal

knots of stress, rose petals, Blood Bank - Bon Iver

* * *

Harry woke up, body soft and moulded like clay. He opened bleary eyes, took in soft white light, the held on flecks of dust in the still air. He felt pressure that disturbed his sleep, on his head. Fingers knit lightly through his hair, drawing out the length and curling softly. Harry grew more awake, clear; he lay draped on a hard body, legs tangled in thin white sheets.

He blinked, lifted his head slightly. He was lying heavy on Malfoy's chest, pressed warm on his black t-shirt against the cool air. Looking up, he met grey eyes watching him in amusement.

"Hey," he said, voice sleepy and grinned blearily. Malfoy was propped up slightly, and smiled soft at him, touching his hair.

"You're like a lion," Malfoy said. "Lounged out loose and spread."

Harry moved his arm over Malfoy's chest, to rest his chin against his forearm to look at him better. He raised his eyebrows, amused. "Isn't that a bit feline? Feminine."

Malfoy laughed, humming his chest. "Not feminine. Think of the male, wild mane," he thread his whole hand through Harry's hair. "Lounging lazily in the back of the pride, all heat and strength, while the lioness does all the work."

Harry sunk into the image, and laughed, buried his face into t-shirt. He felt glow in him. Bright and warm, wrapping his arms wide like the loose lion under Malfoy's shoulders, to tug him closer.

"I think I'll stick with a stag," he said, muffled.

"Oh, I remember that, distinctly," said Malfoy pensively, fingers playing a rhythm in his hair. "Ran me down once."

Harry frowned, then shook with laughter at the memory. "Less lazy, then."

Malfoy was quiet for a long while, and his fingers unthread. Harry looked up; he was looking away, eyes distant and unfocused. Locked within, unreachable.

Harry frowned slightly, and drew a finger over Malfoy's bottom lip, settling in the corner. "Don't disappear," he whispered.

Malfoy smiled slightly, but he already had.

Harry needled lightly on his lip, and he turned his head away. "Morning call. Caffeine beckons," he said, hollow. He shifted slightly, body tensed, pointedly. So Harry moved his weight, and Malfoy slid from under him, rolled his shoulders and walked fluidly out the room. Harry sat up, and sat there. He looked round; he lay alone in powdered sheets, with a mess of bottles and clothes in a cascade round him, paled in morning light. Paled like his glow, a bright sun, now a fogged globe.

Stayed, he did. Harry lioned around the flat, spread and lazy and drooping around. The place was relentlessly overflowing now, not carefully, with careless carnage. The havoc from last night slept on the floor; bottles drained empty or else spilling on the wood, upturned books scattered every step. Spread sporadically from the wall, flat steps around the room, from piles half-intact or toppling. The kitchen was covered in coffee scraps, the pots and grinders and hardened hills of powder.

Malfoy was like dust. Blown around the place, scattering lightly, smoking and sipping coffee. He orbited around, without pattern, his face vacant, as the day slowly burned. Harry found himself watch sometimes, absently. He noticed that Malfoy had no routine. He slept in short spiels, as if accidental, draped somewhere at any time of the day. Or else collapsed, drained and dead, for hours on end. Hands and mind busy with something, chosen as if by random, and buried into. Harry had picked up that he drank tea, at either end of the day. Bleary-eyed mornings, sipping lightly on herbs that smelled like him, or rugged up nights, sipping, and bright eyes. Like book ends, that framed his fractured day.

He scattered around, loose. By evening Harry found him on his bedroom floor, back against the bed, hacking off his thumb nail. Harry crept around him, slid next to him silently. Malfoy was grey and vacant, absorbed in his fingers, a light crease between his brows. Harry watched him, thinking, and stretched back, reaching to clutch the white sheet. He tugged it, drew it off the bed where it floated up like a cloud. And settling over them like skin, enwrapping them in a white tent.

Harry drew up his knees and rest his chin on them, watching Malfoy. Harry held up a plum he carried to his lips, bit into its skin, eyes on him. He seemed to be distracted, ignoring him, frowning lightly. "Dinner," said Harry, holding it up.

Malfoy bit his nails, darkened and full next to him under the sheet. But his lips twitched over his nail, a moment after. His shoulders relaxed, and drew up his knees as well, sighing. He pressed his cheek to them, and met Harry's eyes.

It was reminiscent, a small slice of privacy. They watched each other. Malfoy's eyes curious, softly searching him. "You didn't tell me," he said, quietly.

Harry watched him. He could be talking about so many things. "Which part?"

Malfoy's eyes dropped slightly, and reached to grab the plum. Held it to his eyes, scrutinizing. "This whole time," he said slow, voice fuller under the sheet. He tensed fingers, clawed at plum skin, and fingered in the soft flesh. Dripping wine droplets down his hands, as he carved out a soft segment.

He lay his cheek back on his knees, looked at Harry. "Are you … bisexual, do you say?" he said quiet.

Harry nodded slightly, "I guess. If that's what they say."

Malfoy's lips twitched up, studying him. "They can."

Harry nodded in thought, looking away. "Guess I'm not an open book?" said Harry, grinned soft at him.

Malfoy turned away, smiled at the plum. "You are," he said, fiddling. He turned back to Harry, brow creased, and held his eyes. "I saw – something."

Harry held back his grin. "Saw? Or hoped," he said.

Malfoy rolled his eyes, turning away, his shoulder sliding on the tent. Harry watched, and reached over the small space, his fingers sliding over soft blonde hair, to tuck behind his ear. Malfoy raised his eyebrows, looking down, carving out another segment. He held it up to examine, his fingers stained plum purple, drips or sparse red stains over his hands like diluted blood.

Harry's hand crossed the distance, drew a thumb over his pale wrist, over hollows and to the mounds of palm, and tugged them towards him. He scrutinized long fingers, brow creased, the stains settled in groves of skin, mismatch of pastel and rich colour. He felt enclosed, in the tight white space, and raised it to his mouth. To his lips, fingers moulding past his lips and tentative in his mouth. He felt bumps and ridges, and delicate groves of skin, a light quiver. He found the fruit with his tongue, swirling over cold fingers, and withdrew them, to study them while sweet plum settled in his mouth. He slipped his other hand over slightly damp fingers, wiping them dry, and looked up.

Malfoy was watching his mouth. "Your lips are stained," he whispered. His eyes flicked up and met his; a cool flame danced in the steel grey.

Harry's pulse seemed to take up the tight space. His hand over Malfoy's tugged him forward, but Malfoy pulled free and reached up. Clung, hanging on his chin, eyes on his lips. Harry's lips parted, throat tight, and moved forward – but Malfoy's hand tightened on his chin, just a breath away.

Harry watched his lips. "I meant what I said," said Malfoy, quiet. "We're already fucked up."

Harry looked up, met his eyes, and saw the fragile stir, like wings. "You just don't want to lose me," he heard himself say.

Malfoy frowned, widened eyes shot to his, in surprise. He shook his head indistinctly. Harry reached up, to the tense fingers on his chin and traced them, leaning in. Malfoy jerked his head back slightly, but grew still, and Harry reached him. His lips met softness, tracing the mounds with his own, feather-light. It parted; a gentle tapping of breath against his lips, he could still feel lips imprinted against him, against the sliver of space between them like a stain. He felt fingers slide up his chin, drag down lightly his bottom lip. Harry moved, to close the distance and the fingers tensed, held between them, and Malfoy's head shook again.

Harry wrapped around the hand at his chin, and moved as if to tug it away, but stilled. He shifted back again, eyes on lips a breath away. "Do you want me to stop?" he whispered.

Malfoy was still, fingers still quaking on him. Bridged them apart, with a fragile quiver.

They moved, to enclose Harry's bottom lip lightly, needling gently. After a pause, they dripped off slow, out of Harry's hold, fell out of the space between them.

Heartbeat in his throat, Harry bent his head and met soft lips. Harry mapped them, his movements paper thin and gentle, but they were still-water, like glass; he drew back slightly.

Harry paused as if waiting. He felt pressure, a hand on his leg, tentative, sliding up to knee. To grab his hand, and Harry drew back to watch Malfoy bring it up, study it. He dragged it against his lips vacantly, head bent down slightly, and nibbled down a line of finger. Deep in thought, looking away with clouded eyes. They flicked up, to meet Harry's, with a clouded tentative question in his eyes, a light grey swirl. They watched each other, fingers sliding against teeth, sheltered from the world in their white tent. Until Malfoy's lips cracked, a smile, softening eyes drew down on his lips.

Harry closed the distance again, pulled free his hand to spread through pale hair and draw him in, to meet his lips. He felt soft pressure against him, lightly kiss him, once. Curious, the lips traced over his, explorative, and Harry's fingers thread to pull him closer. He caught lips with his own, felt them part under his pressure and soften. And respond, to press tight with him, as Harry's hand drew down his neck, fingers splaying on warm skin. Like glass cracking, ice over a deep swell of water, Malfoy's lips moved with his, and enclosed soft over skin and fused together. Harry could feel power and strength, bridled in small currents, held tentative under a thin web. Teetering over, in the soft kiss, as it grew with force and Harry clutched him closer. He felt light with bliss; he crackled with a fire, as Malfoy's lips moved harder against his, with a small noise in his throat that sunk straight down Harry's body.

Something moved, the sheet shifted and Harry heard a distinctive sound. Quiet, then more insistent, a meow outside their tent. "God damn cat," Malfoy mumbled against his lips.

Harry smiled against him, and Malfoy pulled back to watch a shadow of little paws, padding at the sheet, as if knocking at the door. He sighed, and pawed back teasingly.

"Lou?" Harry said, and Malfoy's head jerked, shot to him. Face lightly flushed, his eyes widened at being caught. "I heard you the other day, is that his name?"

Malfoy looked at him tentatively, but a smile teased his lips. "He doesn't have one."

"Shut up," Harry laughed, and Malfoy's smile grew as he looked down. Harry watched him, the light rose on his pale cheeks, the lips he bit, so soft and intoxicating against his own, and a warm flutter of heat spread from his chest as he smiled fondly. "Draco," he said.

Malfoy looked up.

"Draco," Harry said again, tasting it in his mouth. Grey eyes flit over his face, searchingly, paused at his lips.

Harry realised he was watching his lips as well, and met light grey swirls. Malfoy smiled, and turned away to lean back on the bed. "Now I'm convinced," he said decisively. "You are a hallucination, maybe you never came back. Determined to haunt me for my schoolyard bully past-times."

Harry laughed. "No," he said, and wrapped a hand round Malfoy's ankle. His hand travelled up his leg, settled on his knee. "I'm right here."

Malfoy's smile faltered, slowly dripped off, as his eyes flickered down to Harry's lips. Harry's hand traced up, pulse erratic, slow to his thigh, and Malfoy met his eyes .

Harry felt light pressure on his shoulder, and the sheet caved in with a tumble and meow. Malfoy stretched his arms up with a sigh, gathering the sheet and rolling up to stand. The darkened evening room tumbled into their space, as he threw the sheet on the bed and slipped loose after it. Lying spread, he scratched the cat's ears and rubbed heads together, walking loose on the bed with a curling tail.

Harry stared at his reflection in the small bathroom, hand tracing his neck. The mess of coal black hair, unshaved jaw and light tan. Dark brows over bright green eyes, a light lilac fruit stain on his bottom lip. He smiled lightly at the bruises on his neck, light dusk and dark wine and bloody, lingered on them. Probing the terrain of love bites, so it stung. He paused with his hand on the tap, and caught the attention of something. A silver ring, pristine against the dull white room. It sat discarded on the sink, foreboding and statuesque. He picked it up, cold and heavy, and held it up to the light. It was adorned with a delicate carved snake. Harry knew that ring, had seen it on a wand-drawn hand, or a taunting hand, in fuming red or haunting grey memories.

"Did you forget?" Harry turned to the voice; Malfoy stood leaning on the doorway, watching him blankly. "Who I am."

Harry looked away, something cold and awkward sliding down his throat. He looked at the ring. "Was."

"I'm still that person," said Malfoy, emptily.

Harry met his closed expression. "You've changed," he said.

"Maybe," said Malfoy, his tone growing cold. He leaned off the frame, made to move away. "But I'm still that person."

Something coloured Harry's mind, a colourless memory. A flash of silver ring, raw fear in grey eyes. "I was there," Harry blurted, and Malfoy stopped moving. "That night, at the Astronomy Tower."

Malfoy stilled with his back to Harry. A moment passed, and his head shifted to the side, so Harry could see the side of his face. "How."

Harry moved forward, throat tight. "I was with him, Dumbledore. Before … you came."

Malfoy remained still, but Harry saw his fists clench.

Harry watched him tentatively. "You wouldn't have done it," he said quietly.

Malfoy's jaw twitched, and he swayed slightly.

"I know that, I saw it," he continued. "Dumbledore knew it, too."

"How do you know that?" said Malfoy, barely audible.

Harry's jaw clenched, but he continued. "Dumbledore knew he was going to die. It was prearranged."

"How do you know that?" repeated Malfoy, a murmur.

"Snape was always going to kill him, it was prearranged between them," Harry kept going. "Dumbledore was going to die anyway, soon."

Malfoy was shaking his head faintly.

"He was cursed. He said that he wanted to spare your soul," said Harry, his throat grew tight. "He didn't want you to become an assassin, a murderer."

"You can't know that," said Malfoy, more distinctly.

Harry ignored him. "They didn't expect you to succeed. Voldemort especially, he wanted to break you," said Harry, and Malfoy started quivering. "Just like when he forced you to do his bidding last year, torture people."

Malfoy spun around, face in shock, and locked eyes with him. They were wide, stirring wild. "How –" he choked.

Harry took deliberate, long breaths. Malfoy was looking at him in wild sceptical fear, like he was a rabid threat. He moved back, and jumped when he hit the hallway wall, then moved skittishly down the hall. Harry followed cautiously, and found him fumbling with pots and powder in the kitchen, hands shaking violently. Breathing erratically, it all fell out of his hands with a loud crash, bouncing off the floor, and he slammed his hands on the bench, eyes closed tight.

Harry approached slowly, and reached to cover his twitching hand. After a moment, Malfoy opened his eyes and peered hesitantly at him. His eyes were wet and fearful. Harry felt a slow ache hollow him out.

"I blamed you, too," he whispered, and leaned heavily on the bench on his elbows, lifting the hand to his forehead. It quivered against his skin, tensely pulled back an inch but Harry held tight, moved it to his mouth. "But I don't."

He looked up, and Malfoy was watching him with cautious, shining eyes. He kissed his palm and held his gaze, but let him go as he pulled back again, moved out the room.

Harry waited, and made like a pale boy, lounging alone on the balcony in the night. Dissolved into the air. He smoked cigarettes slowly, sipping on cold coffee, still and contemplative, as the night moved around him. It must have been hours, and he felt stiff when he got up, walked tiredly through the flat.

Malfoy was hunched, curled in small, on the bed. His back to Harry, as he climbed in and ran soft fingers around his ear, shifting hair back. Harry curled into the bed, and felt him tense as he drew an arm around his ribs. He sunk his face into his neck, sunk into warmth and scent, and gathered his waist to press tight against him. Harry exhaled slowly; everything left him, seeped out, all except his body and being.

It took a few moments; Harry felt tension dissipate from Malfoy's body, and he relaxed in Harry's grip. "I thought maybe you'd left," Malfoy whispered.

Harry shook his head against skin, aching at the hoarse tone. He pressed a light kiss under his ear, and Malfoy drew in a long, shuddering breath.

"You stole my cigarettes," Malfoy mumbled, at the fresh smoky tinge to the air. He sounded half-asleep, and Harry laughed silently, body quaking.

He lay awake, a light glowing hum dispersing through his body, until Malfoy breathed rhythmically and deep. Not long after, he drifted into dreamless sleep, hand hooked to bookmark Malfoy still.


	23. Bliss

powder-lined bags, glass fracture, Young - Vallis Alps

* * *

Harry was shortcutting through seasons.

He was split again, between two worlds that revolved around each other. Floating through Hogwarts' life in his now usual torpor. His mind elsewhere, drifting in bright, tall regal ceilings and vacuous halls. A dry daytime, opposed by a surreal night time.

He spent most nights in the flat or the library, enveloped in white walls and sheets. The musty flat, toppling over them, became some sort of dark, sheltered dream for Harry. Ava and Lee's havoc lay untouched on the floor – apparently Malfoy didn't clean either – and all doors and windows left carelessly open, like some breathing, overgrown vesicle.

In his Hogwarts life, people stared at him or whispered, seemed fixated and curious. Harry had the feeling they had begun to notice, that his previously vacant state had morphed. He was almost permanently gone, had disappeared. Sunk, both mentally and physically, into his new addiction.

He was missing school days, creeping back and forth through the common room at impossible hours. He had been eating dinner absently, and caught Ron staring strangely at him, as if scared, which pulled Harry out of his daze. He had been reliving a slow, honey drip of a memory, bickering with an agitated Malfoy on the balcony, as he jittered around on fairy-light feet, Harry laughing to the stars. He had been getting long-sided strange looks from Ron, tentative all-knowing smiles from Hermione, frequently. He talked more to Lou than he did to Ron nowadays.

Because Harry was becoming increasingly distracted. He carried, locked within him, a vault of memories and moments that intoxicated him and dizzied him like a great, heavy secret. He could look through them, the little fragilities, like the splay of moth wings – up close, webbed veins in a spread, of breakable tree roots. The interconnected splay of pale intricacies;

The way Malfoy's – or rather, Draco, as he had been becoming to learn him as – eyes smiled, a light grey swirl, curling like Lou's tail. Curled curiously at Harry, when his eyes flicked up almost shy, his lip tugging, drawn from a deep absent mind. Long legs wrapped up in his, in a tumble under thin sheets. Fingers sleepily flirting through hair. Light rose bloom lips, little lines and creases, groves stretching sporadically, the corners tainted periwinkle in cold air. Intoxicatingly breakable and destructive. A boneless heap on a shadowed couch, kissing away salty tear trails in sleep. Hunched and stiff, all bones and angles, immersed in tall stacks of books so they overgrew him on the wall. Harry had to tumble his messy way in, poke and laugh, prod and lick the corner of his lips, to get his devoted and unfurling attention. Swarmed and covered, lying between sheets in the early hours of morning, as Harry replayed nightmares in whispers while Draco's bleary fingers stroked his cheeks like feathers.

Harry found himself, walking the castle, with tea-stained fingers, ashy clothes, dark wine bruises, ground coffee fingernails. At various random points, he'd notice these little stains, anywhere on him at any time, and just wouldn't know what to do with himself. Dissolve, maybe. Just fall through the floor.

Most of all, Harry found himself entirely distracted by Draco's lips. He watched them; the way they moved enchanted him, how they pursed or enclosed around things, cigarettes and mugs and fingers. When he was eating or talking; when his brow creased, eyes far away and bit them; when he read intently and licked his lower lip unconsciously. Once, he was shedding an orange on the balcony, pawing back the carcass with nails, and kept drawing his dripping fingers to his mouth, drawing them in slowly and sucking lightly, eyes fixated down. Harry forgot to breathe, and when Draco drew his entire thumb in, cheeks hollowing, he slipped off his elbow and staggered.

Harry couldn't believe he was kissing them, that he could have, that it was allowed. Was real at all – they bestowed him, with little secrets. In every touch, like long lingering whispers, and stained him long after. Sometimes they met his curiously, light and searching. Or teasing, a slow smile tickling him, to hover tentatively. Or like honey, melting into sweet soft bliss. Or else a lure, with gentle force, if the glassy ice cracked under Harry's lips. If the slow warm swell, of life and power, under soft skin grew to meet him. It took him over, enclosed and captured him. Lingered on a question. And always broke too soon.

He felt it, even if he wasn't supposed to, the first time Draco leaned in. Drifting off to black sleep, body lax and entangled in sheets, halfway through a sentence. Words fell off his mouth and he slowly seeped into sleep. He felt a flutter of breath over him, as a light trail of skin lead to his lips. Lips lingered at the corner of his mouth, a dawdled kiss, as if tasting him.

X

Harry had this strange idea he had become a smudge. He thought this on one particular morning; he had not intended to come over the night before, but slipped out after midnight and crept through the flat, burrowed into a body, unapologetically. He woke up squashed. In a heap, a body folded over his, as they were an incomprehensible smudge on the bed. Small remnants of something big and indescribable.

"Fuck it," said Malfoy into his collarbone.

"Hmm?" he murmured sleepily, eyes closed. In the disorientated blur, he felt expired. He knew he'd laid there for too long, slept too much, but couldn't think of anything that he would possibly get up for.

"Class," muffled Malfoy. Harry's mind worked slow, but a thread floated to the surface and he tugged it. They had class, and with opened eyes he noticed it was much too light and white in the room.

"Oh, fuck." Harry jerked his head up, it swam.

"No." Harry felt a dreary leg entangle over his, and his mind grew sharper. "Fuck it."

Harry lay back and sighed. It wasn't the first time, they skipped. He wondered if they would fail something, get thrown out, break something. Some ambiguous constraint. He wondered if he would care. He frowned; his mind wandered aimless, but his body was growing more awake. An unconscious sting, spread in his nerves like an alert. Responsive.

He gradually became aware of something, pressed against him in the smudge of mess and matter. Through thins pants and sheet – it dawned upon him like a slow shift and then sudden jolt – a hard ridge, against his thigh. Blank, his mind went blank. Draco adjusted sleepily over him, sighing and Harry tensed. He was perfectly still; every movement sent beats like a hot circuit through him. Completely distracted, Harry shifted awkwardly, to pull his hand from between them, at his stomach. It dragged under hard-pressed clothes, much too deliberate in the sleepy blur of bodies, and Draco shifted his head up. He peered at him with hazy eyes, but they slowly focused and a smile tugged at his lips.

"Something the matter?" he asked, watching Harry.

Harry could feel his blush, creeping through him, but he felt a grin spread, looking down at Malfoy. "I could ask you that," he mumbled low, mindlessly.

Malfoy laughed, drew his face down against his chest. "Prude," he murmured. He shifted lazily, and Harry's body tensed in response, a stiffness rubbing against him. "We are two queer boys sharing a bed," said Malfoy. "Can't be that surprised."

He moved to lean on Harry's chest, raised his eyebrows at him. His amused smile grew. "You look entirely affected," he laughed, one finger tracing Harry's blush.

Harry looked away, but couldn't bite down his grin. "It's entirely distracting," he looked back at Malfoy's smile.

Malfoy watched him carefully, amused. "Have you … before?" he said quietly. Harry frowned lightly, but understood after a moment.

"Oh, not that," he gestured with his eyes to their joined mid-sections, and Malfoy's smile twitched, "before."

"Hmm." Malfoy rolled off him, onto his back with their hips still touching. "Right."

The tension was palpable. It seemed the whole room had awakened, emitting a low hum in the air between them. It skit through Harry in little waves, his heart pounding.

Harry grinned to the ceiling. "Got something to say?"

Malfoy shook in soft laughter, and rolled up slowly. He lay on his side, looking down at Harry with stirring eyes. "No," he said. "You?"

Harry shook his head lightly, watching him. His eyes drew down, traced his lips. "No," he said, barely audible. The hum rolled through him, a dangerous heat, through his arm and he reached up to encircle his neck, draw him in. Their lips met, Harry circling his arm round his neck and kissed him with force, until Malfoy's lips softened, moulded with him. They intertwined like linked hands; lips kissed him back, a slow burn of energy. They grew against him, and Harry felt strong hands climb around his neck, slide to clasp his jaw and draw him closer with a soft murmur. Lips drew back curiously, to flirt with his lower lip, and suck gently. Harry felt a blissful burn like liquor skirt through him, infuse him with furious heat.

Mindlessly furious, reckless. He couldn't think. His arms slid down to gather Malfoy's waist urgently, pulling him down and Malfoy made a sudden noise, as if surprised, in his throat. His hot weight, full and heavy on Harry, squirmed tight against him. Licks of flame burned him, little electric skirts of pleasure unfurling through his body. Hands thread through Harry's hair, fingers curling to draw them closer, clutching tight and Harry's breath caught with a choked sound. He parted to let a strangled breath out, and felt tongue drawn tentatively over his lower lip. Harry tugged him closer, so it slipped in his mouth, teased his own lightly, and a warm pool spread hot in his stomach. Breathing unevenly, he grappled with Malfoy's hips, clutching his shirt and drawing it up, and Malfoy sunk into him and made a low noise in Harry's mouth. He felt that distracting heat, that hard ridge, tantalize him and rub against his hip. His urgent hands splayed possessively over naked skin, down the raised tension of his back, to the dip of his lower back. A spark, dangerous and electric, lit deep within him and he shifted under him, aligning their hips and his hold became firm, nails clawing his hips.

Malfoy huffed shakily into his mouth, lips slowing to bite his lower lip gently, as if thinking. In the pause, Harry could feel his own violent pulse competing with another pressed against the length of his body. Malfoy drew his head back, shifting off Harry slightly to rest on his side, and Harry opened his eyes to see his flush face, looking away with wild eyes. "Shit," Malfoy said, out of breath.

He looked down at Harry, chest heaving, with slight shock in his eyes. "I almost forgot," he said. "You have no constraint."

Harry laughed breathily. "I –" he swallowed. "Yeah, got a bit carried away."

Malfoy watched him carefully, and shook his head slowly. His lips twitched. "I swear, Harry Potter." He lay back carelessly, spread on his back. "You're going to kill me."

Harry laughed, in loud bubbles that bounced round the room. He stretched long arms above him head, drawing long breaths and shifted to his side, buried his face in Malfoy's warm neck. He nibbled teasingly at the skin, and Malfoy sighed.

X

Harry felt the strict lines blur, between his two worlds. He first noticed as traces of his other life hung on his skin and clothes. They had come to a silent agreement not to mention their conversation about the past, how Draco broke. But Harry could feel it, their realities were beginning to invade. He decided, without really deciding, to encourage it.

Harry walked into Transfiguration, trailing behind Ron and Hermione. They moved to the right, to slide into a long desk at the back of the classroom, but Harry kept walking. His feet grew lighter, like they'd left him, by the time he reached a desk towards the front, and slid in next to a tall pale figure sitting alone.

Harry took out his books and quill slowly, arranging them unnecessarily, before he sat still and tall, and faced the front as if attentive. The room had grown hushed, prematurely without a professor in the room.

Harry looked sideways at him. Malfoy had grown tense, but didn't acknowledge him, facing forwards with vacant eyes. Harry bit back the wild bubble in his throat, to laugh wildly or flee, but a slow smile crept on his lips. "Hey," he said, watching him carefully.

Malfoy looked at him once, searchingly, from the corner of his eye. "Potter," he said blankly.

Harry's shoulders twitched once, in silent laughter, but lay his hands neatly on the desk. He could feel a classroom of eyes on him, and low murmurs began behind him, but he remained fixed, facing forwards. He watched Malfoy discreetly, saw his still composure break to flit his eyes. Malfoy looked him up and down from the corner of his eye, and Harry bit his twitching lip. A light trace of humour lit in Malfoy's cautious eyes.

"Nice neck," he murmured, barely audible.

Harry's hand traced a fading bruise and jerked again, an irresistible bubble trapped in his throat, and couldn't contain his smile.

McGonagall swept in, and fell into a long-winded spiel in a carefully deliberate tone, that captivated the attention of the class. Apart from the low murmurs that travelled to Harry, the strange air to the room, and all of Harry's attention. His eyes were locked on the little lines of Malfoy's lips, quivering lightly and spreading as humour danced in the corner of his mouth, but his expression was carefully attentive. Malfoy glanced at him once, and perhaps understood, as he pressed his lips together. When Harry looked back, Malfoy was needling his lower lip with teeth, pulling the skin gently and letting it spring loose. A slow tongue traced his lower lip, as if in deep thought, but his eyebrow rose.

Harry snorted loud, involuntarily, shoulder's buckling.

"Potter," said McGonagall tightly, halting her monologue. "Something to add, I presume?"

Harry rubbed his face, over his wide smile. "No, Professor," he said shakily. "Sorry."

It seemed so impossible, so laughable, to sit next to him in this great imposing stretch of people and stares and reality. While the secret vault inside him, with the mass of beautiful things bound up in privacy, weighed him down. In every shared glance between them, Harry could feel the weight of it deep inside him, seep out.

When class ended, Malfoy stood and began to sweep up his stuff fluidly. He bent over the desk intently, gathering books, hunched in close to Harry. "I want pasta, tonight," he murmured low, and made to move off. Harry watched him walk away, amid people filing out that cast them glances, and momentarily forgot, smiling wide.

In Charms, Harry sat on a long table and could feel him, sitting directly behind him. Like a pull, rumbling over the floor under his feet, that misdirected his magnetic centre. He leaned back in his seat, arms stretched loosely back.

To his left side, Ron and Hermione bickered over something insignificant, whether cushions or chairs would play a better role in their charm practice, their voices carried over the gentle hum of the room. Hermione reasoned in a fast roll like a chattering bird and Ron shook his head fervently. Flitwick finally met them as he paced the room, and gave one cushion and one chair between them.

"And you, Potter," said Flitwick, in exasperation. "What will you have? Which do you prefer?"

Harry blinked lazily and opened his mouth, but was interrupted by a voice behind him. "He'll have both."

Harry buckled and swung up fast, a loud snort escaped him again, and then froze. He felt curious eyes on him, a hot flush on the back of his neck. He cleared his throat awkwardly, and Flitwick sighed, dropped a cushion on his desk and moved off. His head jerked to the side, and felt Ron and Hermione stare at him, but he gave in and spun in his seat.

Malfoy looked at his desk intently, but glanced up once and met his gaze. A wicked gleam lit in his eyes, a sly tug of his lips, and he looked down again. Something passed between them, a brief flare, like a flash. Harry watched him, ignoring the strange looks from classmates, and felt a dance of bubbles like champagne climb up his throat. He let out a stifled burst of laughter. Malfoy's smile grew, and drew his hand over his mouth, nibbled on his knuckles. He glanced up once more, and their eyes met. His curious eyes spoke legions, wrapped up neatly in his still composure, but Harry felt warmth tickle him, felt little walls fall down.


	24. Smudge

chai spices, black leather boots, Warpaint - Billie Holiday

* * *

Harry grew more daring, tread tentative feet over the line. Or more leaped thoughtlessly, invading his space.

He walked light into the Great Hall alone for breakfast one morning, and saw Hermione and Ron sitting halfway down the Gryffindor table in their usual spot, backs turned to him. They sat close, opposite a lively Ginny, flaming hair twirling through the air as she flicked it back, mouth animated as she talked. He walked automatically, but fought against his growing restless fumble, and passed them. But caught the eye of Hermione as she laughed, turning absently to watch him and he half-smiled, and kept walking.

He felt out of his own body, as he crossed the hall and made towards a spot on the Slytherin table his eyes had worn out well over the years. Malfoy only looked up when he climbed over the bench opposite him, a quick glance, then his head shot up in surprise and he watched him sit with widened eyes. Slight panic stirred in his eyes, as Harry watched him with a slow smile creeping on his lips. Harry looked round him closely, he had been boring a hole in the table with downcast eyes, hands clutching a steaming mug. His eyes now flit around him, down the table and around the Hall, at the mass of stares. But Harry merely settled in, poised loosely on the table as if it was his regular spot, and grabbed some toast.

"Didn't think Hogwarts' coffee would be up to your standard," he said lightly, bringing toast to his mouth and watching Malfoy with loose eyes, smiling.

Malfoy looked back to him in astonishment. He searched him, and then cleared his throat, looked down and fiddled with food on his plate. A drained mug sat between them, with remnants of tea leaves – his morning tea. It was odd, to see him eat food Harry hadn't coaxed in him, cooked up messily at impossible hours in dim light. And to see him so close at the Slytherin table, hunched in pale and alone, fingers quivering light and curling, after years of furtive watching from afar. Like trespassing into his untouchable, refined air.

He pretended to ignore the fact that a tense hush had fallen in his immediate vicinity, that whispers and murmurs travelled to him, and that Malfoy's eyes kept swivelling around, head tilted down. There was a sour unease; they were outside of the role of students, study partners, and instead tread unmarked territory.

Harry merely sighed loosely and looked out the great windows, as if there was a comfortable lull in the conversation.

"Chamomile," he said vaguely, picking up the coil of scent from the mug, and inference attached, from his habits. "What are you stressing about?"

When Harry glanced back, Malfoy's lips twitched momentarily, but he didn't look up or reply.

"You have a better view of the lake from here," said Harry, and looked back to see Malfoy shift nervously. Harry considered him, and reached over to clasp the mug clutched in spidery hands lightly, and tugged it to him. Malfoy's hand jerked, and dripped off the mug and fell on the table. Harry brought it to his face with false intent, biting his tentative smile, and frowned at it.

"Far too weak for you," said Harry, inspecting it. "It's even more diluted than when I make it. But you're not exactly going to smear ground coffee over the house elves." He met Malfoy's eyes and smiled tentatively, remembering a particular time Harry had delivered not-good-enough coffee.

Malfoy watched him cautiously, but a light swirl curled in the grey. He glanced down almost shyly, and tugged back the mug. He raised it to his face, a small smile over the mug. Harry ate toast absently, and looked round to catch a pair of eyes. A few seats away, Pansy watched him tightly, looking him up and down, opposite Blaise who stared challengingly at him. Harry glanced away, but looked back and smiled, as if casually. They looked hard at him.

Harry heard a cough; Malfoy cleared his throat and met their gazes directly. Blaise looked away, but Pansy gave him a scathing look. And Harry caught a few more eyes peering at him before he looked down again.

"It's a bit thin," said Malfoy quietly, and Harry looked up to meet his tentative gaze, over his clasped steaming mug, and Harry smiled back.

Once they'd left the Hall separately, Harry was later walking absently down a corridor before their first class. When a pale figure turned a corner ahead of him. Malfoy glanced back and their eyes locked through the crowd, and he saw a flicker of a smile before he walked ahead of him. Harry followed, weaving between people, eyes tracking him. He ghosted him around a few corners, his pace slowly quickening, into the library, both pulled there like gravity. Through a labyrinth of tall bookshelves, until he was within arm's reach. Malfoy slowly turned, but Harry reached out and grappled with his hips, messily grabbing him and shoving him into a darkened corner. Malfoy made a low sound of protest, before Harry kissed him fervently and pressed him tight against the shelf, enveloped and full in his space. Harry gripped him tight, splaying his hands over his sides, lips moving hard against his lips that melted soft into him. Malfoy sighed into his mouth, and Harry fell into him, his tongue indulgent, exploring his mouth.

His lips were like a paradise, they enfolded over Harry and tangled him in this sweet dream, this foreign thing, he could lose himself to. It was cruel ecstasy; Harry could never get enough, never wanted to stop. He kept entangling in it. He felt Draco knew that; he had to, with the way Harry kissed him, on repeat, like an addict. And blissful and long, indulgently tasting him, like it fed him. He could taste his morning, the bitter depth of coffee, breath of smoke on his tongue.

Malfoy mumbled against him, and pulled back slightly. "You –" he breathed, but Harry fumbled over his lips again, sucking lightly on his lower lip. Malfoy exhaled heavily, a light stutter, and pulled away. "Someone will come around the corner," he whispered.

They hadn't been like this, this explicit and open, of course, in the library before. Just whispers of kisses and touches, little secrets for the books. But Harry sunk in. "I don't care," he murmured.

Malfoy's head sunk into his shoulder, and deliberately shifted around him, stepping away. He moved to the opposing shelf, fumbled shakily with a cigarette. "Maybe you should," he leaned languidly.

Harry watched him, leaned back on the shelf. His eyes were unseeing out the window, and they lapsed into silence. Words hummed on Harry's lips; they fell out. "What do your friends know?"

Malfoy's jaw twitched, but remained loose and smoked delicately. He could be asking anything. Malfoy looked at Harry tiredly.

"They know I'm gay," he said. "No one else at Hogwarts does."

Harry was silent, as if pointedly.

Malfoy exhaled a slow trail, watching him palely. "They know we're –" He hesitated, lips blurred. "Friends."

Harry watched him carefully, searching, but Malfoy looked away.

A current stirred uneasily in his stomach, and he moved to interrupt Malfoy's line of sight. Close to him, he sat on the window-sill, legs brushing his and trailing light fingers over his hand. As if reflexively, fingers weaved loosely with his, and Malfoy sighed. He detangled, moved to Harry's other side and sat, drawing up his knees.

Harry watched him stare at the sky, unfocused and smoking slow. "Are we going to talk about it?" he said quietly. Within the indecipherable, morphing smudge of them, there were no words of clarity. But it lingered around them like an audience, Harry could feel it; they just kept drawing sheets against it.

"I suppose we will," said Malfoy vaguely. Harry inspected his faraway eyes, but he took several long drags in long moments.

"It doesn't make sense," he said finally, as if automatic.

Harry frowned lightly. "Does it need to?" He waited, but Malfoy was unresponsive and unmoving. "Does it feel like it makes sense?"

Malfoy smiled lifelessly, with tired eyes. "What does it matter what I feel," he said vaguely.

Harry blinked. "How wouldn't it matter?"

Malfoy merely smoked. Harry's frown became troubling. "So you feel nothing?" Harry asked.

Malfoy closed his eyes briefly. "I didn't say that." He looked at nothing, picking absently at his fingernails.

Harry watched him, but he was like still-water. A light tremble, but unyielding. He was silent, but moved off eventually, to go to class. Harry knew they were late, but he merely sat, resigning like a pool against the window.

Harry sat alone in the Great Hall; soft early light began to warm the air, as dawn broke. A few students were scattered on tables, some small huddles, but the Hall was subdued as if still asleep. Harry sipped coffee mechanically. A deep bout of nightmares had hit him like a wave, sleeping alone, and couldn't find sleep again. The bloody entrails of them lingered, numbed his skin.

Quick feet scampered towards him, and he turned to watch Ginny climb in and sit tightly next to him. She was bright; face flushed lightly and eyes shining. She swung her lively hair back and nudged against his body. "Hey, mopey."

Harry smiled at her and pinched her nose softly. "Funny," he said, and her nose crinkled at him. "Quidditch?"

"Yeah," said Ginny, and leaned her face on her elbows to consider him. A light gleam flirt with him in her eyes. "I replaced you, the team likes me better."

Harry mimicked her stance, and raised his eyebrows. "Is that so?" She smiled mischievously, and he knocked her elbow with his in their proximity, so she staggered. She laughed like glass clinking, loud in the quiet Hall, and swat him.

Harry smiled at the table, and looked up to meet her gaze. She considered him closely, her eyes grew soft. "You don't play."

Harry didn't know what to say. He felt wistful, something old and riddled into him twist. "Yeah, guess not," he said quietly.

Ginny watched him, and bit her lip. Harry frowned lightly, watching, and she laid a hand over his on the table. Harry looked at it blankly.

"You're lonely," she said. Harry watched her hand, its soft cover. He looked up to her earnest eyes. Deep and warm and riddled into him, familiar, like a scar. "I know you're lonely," she said soft. Harry knew; he felt an edge to her voice, and sure enough a hand touched his leg.

Harry opened his mouth, but felt the hand climb, move to his inner thigh. His body stirred, and she caressed a finger dangerously close. "You don't have to be," she said quietly.

Harry watched her, the familiar lick of flame in her eyes. It would be so easy. To resign, lose himself in her. To someone that wanted him, that certainty, when he was in so much disorder. He could just release, and fall into that well-worn nook they'd carved out together, recollect it.

Harry saw him in her eyes, just as she saw her in his. He could just unfold over her body, greet it like an old friend. He saw her gentle flame, or hard blaze, that lured him in. Her soft curves, hollows and rounds he could find home in. He saw her brush on makeup like a slow still-life painter, face gentle and lips parted loose, poised in her underwear with soft morning light over her bare shoulder. He saw her body loose and warm under him, damp and writhing amid giggles, buried into her like a haven.

He could fall back into that weathered space. But something captured him now. He was lost to it.

Harry felt his gaze shift, realign, before he was aware of it. He hadn't noticed Malfoy come in, but he saw him now, perched directly in front of him at the Slytherin table. He saw white knuckles, strained around a mug, and stiff shoulders. Before they locked eyes. Malfoy was watching him intently, his eyes flit over them as if recording details, and met his again. Harry saw Pansy near him, chattering enthusiastically but Malfoy didn't look away from him. He felt their cool burn, before they flit away.

"It's there," said Ginny, and Harry broke, grew aware. He exhaled a breath he didn't know he'd been holding. She watched their covered hands. "If you want it to be."

She drew up, moved over the bench, and kissed his temple softly. Before moving away, leaving Harry grey. He felt smudged out, a blur, and closed his eyes briefly.

A heavy hand clapped his back, a small or long time later. He watched Ron slide in next to him, and heap mountains on his plate, and Hermione climbed in opposite him. Harry rubbed his face blearily, elbows perched, while they teased each other, Hermione's pinky poised over her tea.

"Malfoy's burning holes at you, by the way," Ron said, muffled by toast. Harry jerked up, head out of his hands, to look over and watch grey eyes flit away again. "Not that that's unusual."

Harry smiled absently, felt a gurgle of laugh in his throat, but resigned to rest his head in his palms. He gave in to the numb stain on his skin, to the blur, and felt himself tire.

X

That night, Harry didn't think about it, but he didn't need to. He found Draco curled up in the dark, eyes bright. He was sunk into the couch in his flat, knees drawn up, still and watchful like a cat. He watched Harry creep into his space, sit next to him.

Harry sat still, listened to the night creep around them. No candles had been lit, there was nothing in Draco's hands, and the window closed. The place was flat and still, gravestone grey. The slow shine from a streetlamp, and Draco's eyes, disrupted the colourless static scene.

He looked at Draco, and reached up and touched his knee, thumb skirting his pants. Draco's lips cracked, downwards. A slight fracture, and he came to life slowly. His knees parted slightly, and stretched down his legs, breaking the space between them. Harry shifted forward between them, grazing his leg slowly. "Talk to me," he whispered.

Draco looked at him, considering him with slow eyes in the dark. They stilled at his lips, and he shook his head slightly. He leaned forwards, paused close to his face, tracing him with lazy eyes. "Kiss me," he whispered.

Harry brushed his cheek with soft fingers, sweeping down to clutch his jaw. Draco's lips parted expectantly, but Harry frowned at him. Harry watched him carefully, as if searching for some simple thread in his composed face. Draco glanced at his eyes, and moved close, to trace a light tongue in the corner of his lips, following the line of his lower lip. Harry closed his eyes, and breathed into his mouth, and fought against the warm swell that grew like alcohol stains, blinding him. Lips sucked his lower lip lightly, teeth snagging it, and he felt his own hands curl around a warm neck, clutch hair. He desperately fumbled with the loosening thread in his mind, tried to care, say something. But he merely parted his lips and caught lips eagerly, coaxing them to move with his. He forced them open, hands tugging Draco closer, so his tongue moved in his mouth forcefully, and Draco sighed deep.

Draco felt distinctly masculine; his broad shoulders, his edges and angles, against him. His terseness, in the spread of muscles and firm movements, full and competing with him. Girls felt like a foreign plain; with them he felt like he was trekking, indulging in, unexplored terrain. This was different, and Harry savoured it, drunk it in – it felt just as much him as someone else; there was a synchronicity to it.

He felt urgent hands moving, to clutch his hips and tug him forwards with more force than he was used to, so he groaned soft in Draco's mouth. He felt a smile grow against him, arms climb up his back so he was pressed against a hard body.

"Stop trying to distract me," Harry mumbled against lips.

The smile grew. A light tongue whispered in his mouth. "Stop giving in then."


	25. Remnants

filters and papers, "I could go forward in the light, but I better fold my clothes" 33 God - Bon Iver

* * *

Dawn almost broke on the balcony; the sky was deep melancholic blue. It uninvited them to the day, invited them to sleep, and it was like they were. Draco sat loose on the worn couch, so pale he was almost a marble blue. Harry could hear him rolling cigarettes, fumbles of thin paper and crackling tobacco.

"Why do you smoke?" he said.

"I'm pretty sure you're not supposed to ask that," said Draco blandly.

Harry smiled sleepily. "Not supposed to?" He sat on the balcony floor like a ceramic pot, still as sleep, against Draco's legs.

"It's outside the social contract. It's taboo. Too personal." He heard paper slide against something, his dangerous tongue, probably.

"Oh right, sorry," Harry sighed, stretching his head to the sky, to lean against knees. "I basically live in your bed, I know every pattern to your lips. But let's uphold formality."

Draco's knees shook slightly in laughter, and he felt fingers play a single rhythm in his hair. "Is nothing sacred to you?"

Harry smiled, but waited. "Nah," Draco sniffed. "It's a left over."

Harry frowned. Draco continued, in an old voice. "Luca smokes more than me. That's all you're left, all you get from old lovers. Habits."

Harry hadn't thought about it like that. He wondered what he'd soaked from Ginny. A clinking lilt to his laugh, maybe, when playful.

He felt something chill his insides slowly. Draco was quiet for a while, eventually becoming still. "He's still part of my life, as well," he said blankly. Harry felt a coil inside him, and had a sudden impulse to shove Draco's knees away.

But he was still, dreary, and Draco continued tonelessly. "She wants you, doesn't she?"

Harry knew, what he meant. He was drawing similarity, or getting even maybe. He felt a flash of diluted anger in his stomach, and closed his eyes briefly.

But Draco sounded as if he were sleep-talking, and merely took sips of red wine above Harry. "He does, too."

Harry breathed deep. He heard himself speak, after a while. "Do you do anything about it?"

There was a long pause.

"Do you?" was the reply.

They were silent.

Harry lay formless later, imbedded in sheets, unsure where he ended and Draco began. It was burning midday outside, but they threw that aside, and created night. It all felt heavier, like clothes draping over him, dampening. The small remnants of the outside world hung on them, strangers in the room.

He thought Draco was asleep, lying still in his neck and breathing slow, wrapped under a white tent. Until he felt small rearrangement; legs folding, shoulder shift against sheet.

Breath tickled his neck. "I don't do anything about it," Harry whispered.

It was quiet for so long that Harry felt he was actually asleep, merely talking to the heavy clothes.

Draco's voice carried on a breeze that wasn't there, in their strangle of covers. "Neither do I."

They were quiet, breathing in the dark. He felt something shift, the breathing on his neck stopped. He opened his eyes to a silk touch. Lips on his; Draco kissed him soft and warm, a slow drip like a secret. Syrup sweet, before it slipped off, left to their false night.

Harry woke up alone. It was darker, messier, staler, as he sat up blinking. The scatter around the room lay untouched, but had grown – more clothes strewn and butts and bottles. He knew without knowing, that he was alone.

He truly considered leaving, but he wouldn't know where to go, and he didn't want people. Nowhere felt as sheltered, as much part of his form as his body, as here. Wasn't that his toothbrush, next to another in the bathroom? His school clothes, in the indecipherable mounds on the floor. He had carved out something, room for him.

His feet pad around the flat in the night. It had shut down. No light, no candles, no brewing coffee and burning ash, flicker or life. All the dead books and matter, lay strewn neatly and without coordination.

He felt he hardly knew what day it was, let alone the time. He felt placeless; he sat in the middle of the flat and watched rain hit the window and draw patterns and streams. He watched with drunk eyes, lulled by the soft thuds, until they grew rhythmic beats like a drum like his pulse and he felt dissociative. He could have been on another planet. A small white dark musty chaotic sphere.

He, Harry Potter, basically living in Draco Malfoy's flat. Like outcasts and runaways, alone and together. Like sheltered Muggles, like deadbeat friends, like –

He wanted to close his eyes to it all.

But nothing else struck his core as this, this unutterable, imperfect, impossible truth.

Harry watched the streetlamp cast silvery light through the veins of rain running down the large window. It cast glimmers, a great moving swimming pool of light over the floor; he could run his hands through the web of slippery light. It shimmered and stretched on his hand, alive. But he could never catch it. And he knew the truth.

He was weathered paper torn from a great foreboding book, loose and adrift. And he knew.

He could not say it, but it hardly mattered. Draco was there anyway.

Harry found himself in the common room, lying loose, and felt blind drunk. It holed itself in him like a burying insect, scratching away.

"Budge up," and he let his arm droop from its splay over his face, saw Ginny sit on his legs on the squishy couch.

Harry sat up and blinked. "What time is it?"

Ginny glanced at him, then stared. "Breakfast. Are you alright?"

Harry wondered if Draco was making coffee somewhere, if he was drunk, wrapped around a boy.

"Hmm," he mumbled. He heard voices loudening around him, a clatter of people waking up, and Ron and Hermione swirled in like bright lights to sit around them.

They chat around him like loud drums about Quidditch and Harry closed his eyes to it, lying back down. "God, I'll take a shot at it, shall I?" he heard Ginny say, and the others laughed.

"Harry," she said fixedly, and he peered blearily at her. "Here, this'll pull you in. Did you know that Malfoy's gay?"

He jerked up violently, shot up straight. Ron gaped at Ginny, but Hermione was goddamn watching him, of course.

"Gay?" said Ron, eyes wide. "No way."

Ginny nodded fervently. "I heard Slytherin girls complaining in the bathrooms, before Pansy came in and hexed them. I was in a stall."

"Gay?" said Ron in disbelief. Harry's jaw clenched.

Ginny shone a wide smile. "Yep, they were complaining about how the most attractive boy in school is permanently unavailable. I assumed some kind of sick Pure-Blood arranged marriage, but then, well. I believe the expression was 'gay as fuck'. Did you guys know?"

Did he know, Harry thought. I am a groove in his peach stone. Climbed inside his secret.

They chat on, and he only grew conscious when he heard his name. Hermione watched him timidly.

"Harry, even Slytherins aren't immune to you," Ginny giggled, and he frowned at her. " _Second_ most attractive, they remembered to include you."

Harry groaned. "It's my status they like."

Hermione and Ginny laughed; Ron was still struck solid.

"Don't be daft," said Hermione. She exchanged an amused, knowing look with Ginny.

"Hard to find a girl that would disagree with them," said Ginny, a mischievous glint in her eyes. She winked at him, and Harry glared at her, felt his cheeks redden.

"But wouldn't you know, Harry?" said Ron, finally pulling out of his reverie. "You're … _friends_ with him, after all."

Harry's throat strained, a hard lump formed. So far they had not mentioned their spat in the Great Hall; he felt Ron was ignoring it, or waiting for him to say something, while Hermione danced around it silently. It lingered, in long-sided looks and whispers that followed him like brooding shadows wherever he went.

"You're – what?" Ginny's gaze shot to him. "I thought that was just a rumour."

"But I overheard even Pansy and Blaise rave about you, Harry," said Hermione quickly, and Harry met her sympathetic smile. He returned it gently, while Ron and Ginny roared with laughter.

"I remember that," Ginny laughed like glass. "At the Leaky Cauldron. Pansy was teasing Blaise about that scandalous kiss you shared in spin the bottle. He got all huffy and they had a swearing match right there at the bar, and – wait for it, the killer line – he said 'even Draco thinks he's bloody hot'."

Harry's pulse jumped, stomach overturned. "Wait – what?"

"Oh, you didn't know Blaise likes boys too?" said Hermione nervously, looking between them. Harry blinked.

"You would have been with him, right Harry?" said Ron sourly. "You didn't come out that night, Slughorn's project."

Harry's hazy mind spun, struggling to get a grip. "Yeah, I guess." The first night he went to the flat on his own, it would have been. And Draco thinks – what? It couldn't have been a surprise, having been entangled with his long warm body, having tasted every colour of his lips and neck and skin. But the words, the certainty, spun him, and it was a long time ago. A whole other slice of them, before.

He thought of Lee and Ava's words at the underground bar. Of Draco's soft eyes, when Harry caught him sometimes, watching him. His rose blush, when Harry teased. Tasting his moan in his mouth. His grey indifference, his sharp anger, petty competing. Turbulent, his head spun; it was senseless.

Ron's grumbling stomach saved him, and they made to move off to breakfast. "Hermione," blurted Harry, in a desperate tone. They looked round, and he cleared his throat. "Can you stay, for a moment?"

Ron and Ginny kept moving, nudging each other at the portrait hole, but Hermione looked at him curiously. She sat beside him. "What is it?" she said softly.

Words stuck and slipped. "I don't know," he began. "I don't know anything." _Answers are boring. It's questions which are interesting._ Draco's words reverberated in him. "He changes, he's unpredictable. And then he's unpredictably the same. I never know."

Hermione looked at him softly, searching, and pressed her lips together. "Well, I can't pretend to know him." Harry felt desperate, for some rationality, something reliable. Hermione provided that. He clasped her hand.

She watched him, her eyes softening. "But I know you," she said quietly. "Maybe you're missing something?"

Harry walked through his school day, and thought about what he might be missing.

He was passive, by the time the Gryffindor's romped the common room with hard liquor, and spun into their atmosphere. Their buzz and chatter ended up at the familiar Muggle bar; Harry was instantly surprised at the change. They had established something; almost all of the students from their year were bustling around, loud clumps at the bar or the wild inter-house table. At the table their drinking games and squabble centred the whole bar, brought all the bright focus.

Hermione was determined he had fun, and kept weaving their arms together, pulling him along. Harry didn't drink as much, merely listened and watched and smiled, felt Hermione's warm hold. Enthused by Harry's participation, Ron drank more than he should and guffawed loud, arms waving, ran the drinking game like a captain.

He decentred, wandered over to the bar and perched on it. His loose lean, neat posture, framed out of the shot, reminded him of another person. Who he hadn't seen, since their small exchange under sheets, their heavy admissions, carrying lightly on a breeze.

He felt a warm, heavy hand on his back, and for a second thought his mind had manifested him here. But when he turned, it was Blaise.

Blaise considered him, face aglow with the warm bar light. "I believe I promised you a drink, Potter," he said.

Harry considered him too, thinking vaguely he shouldn't, especially this direct. He noticed the hard lines to his dark face, sharp cheekbones and angles, skin like a velvet night. The suggestive slant to his eyes. He was attractive, really, thought Harry. In an admirable, sultry, brooding way. He hadn't thought to notice.

Harry pulled something, from his dissociative state, a false confidence. He wore it like clothes. "Come on, then," he said flatly.

Blaise raised his eyebrows, faintly surprised, but smiled suggestively. He ordered dark liquor, like burnt amber, and Harry sipped on it slowly, looking away. Slow skates of burn slid through him like a caress. The warm hand didn't leave, and Harry didn't move it.

Harry watched his drink swill around slowly. "So, you're into boys."

Blaise hesitated, and when he glanced at him he saw traces of shock again. Harry wasn't surprised. "Got that from a kiss, did you?"

Harry shrugged unhelpfully.

"I'm curious," Blaise drawled. "What you get up to with Draco, all locked up together."

"What are your thoughts?" said Harry flatly, watching the liquor.

The heavy hand caressed him lightly, and for the first time Harry felt estranged. A stir of unease.

"I can guess," Blaise said, low, and he moved closer. Harry looked up at him dimly, and considered asking where Draco was, why Blaise was talking to him, but Blaise was watching his mouth and Harry looked back down at his drink.

He had a strange thought, amid thoughtlessness. This was his first, conscious, interaction with someone who shared his sexuality. He laughed aloud, felt more attached to his own body, and looked around at Blaise. As if some small string connected them, and he wanted to share something, lean into his warm hand. Perhaps he was just desperate, for something he could claim, but that was okay too, he thought. Blaise smiled slowly at him, curious.

"Blaise," a hard voice shot to them. Harry turned sharply and met icy grey. Draco stood behind him, tall and imposing, and flicked his gaze to Blaise. "You look tired," Draco said, sharp brittles. His expression was as casual as his words, but his eyes as sharp as his tone. Shards of cold ice.

Blaise frowned at him, but eased off Harry in response. Something passed between them, and he sneered at Draco. "Sure, Draco," he said, and slinked into the crowd.

"What are you doing here?" Harry watched Draco, who seemed to ignore him.

Draco watched the crowd, eyes flickering over the mass intently. "What did he want?"

Harry was silent, watching, and after a while Draco's erect body hunched forward. He moved round him to lean on the bar. He leaned against Harry, and their eyes met. The close stare was expectant, competitive, hard.

Draco broke first. "I'm drunk."

Harry watched him, a breath away. "He was buying me a drink," he said carefully.

Draco's eyes traced his face, sloppily. "Is that right," he said, quietly. Harry felt a touch, a hand on his outer thigh. He looked down to it; a pale hand skirt his jeans slowly, circled round his leg deliberately. His body flared in response, but he looked up and met an icy stare. He looked hard back, and the hand reached his inner thigh. His body shook, in violent hot circuits pacing up and down, but he didn't look away.

Light fingers moved higher, dangerous close, and Harry's lips quivered. "You're drunk," he murmured.

Draco merely watched him closely, eyes swimming loose. Fingers inched close, moved up, and traced his hard outline, and Harry's body jolted violent. He broke the stare, swung his head down to the bar, breathing in loud huffs. "People can see," he shuddered.

Draco ignored him again, fingers tracing a dangerous pattern and Harry dissolved, body throbbing and flushed.

He didn't realise his eyes were closed, until he felt lips at his ear. "Come home with me," whispered Draco.

He didn't know he was nodding, didn't feel himself lean into the touch, until it disappeared and a hand clutched his shoulder hard. The world immaterialised in a loud rush of colour and noise –

Familiar smell and feel, a dark narrow white hallway and wooden floorboards.

"Fuck, Draco!" Harry yelled, toppling over. "You can't just –"

Lips slammed into his violently, coaxing his open, and he was slammed into the hallway wall. Draco's hands clutched at his shirt aggressively, tugging it up in bunches, and his tongue moved deep in Harry's mouth. Draco was swaying slightly, but pressed himself hard against Harry. He tasted like fire, burning liquor and ash, tainting Harry's mouth and warming it like flames.

"You –" Harry spoke into his mouth, but Draco growled deep in his throat, and clutched him hard. His mouth moved to Harry's neck, licking and biting him amid hot kisses, and Harry's head hit the wall. His own hands gathered hips, drew them against his tighter, and Draco finally got his shirt off, drawing it over his head messily and returned to his neck, trailing kisses and bites over his collarbone. Hot, large hands splayed over his stomach, gripping his sides and tantalizing his skin. It was intoxicating, and Harry's head fell on a shoulder, breathing shakily on warm skin as urgent hands climbed his back.

"You're drunk," he said.

"I changed my mind," murmured Draco into his neck, his hands gripping his own shirt and furling it off in a single long move, and stumbled into Harry again. Harry breathed into his neck, hands climbing his broad back, the hard lines and raised beds of muscle. He loved it; as much as Draco seemed to appreciate him, clawing down his sides.

Nails gripped the edge of his jeans, pulling him tightly against hips, and their beating centres were pressed against each other, Draco as hard as him.

Harry exhaled a sharp noise. "You're mindless."

Hands travelled to his belt, fumbling with it. "I'll be your experiment."

A trickle flared cold up his spine. His body pulsed with heat shimmers, but Harry shook his head indistinctly. "No."

Draco leaned into him, tantalized him with a distracting hard heat, and got his belt undone. "You want this," he said low.

Harry shook his head, slower and more determinedly. He lifted it, opened his eyes and blinked at the wall behind Draco. Ignoring his volcanic body, he shifted, until Draco's head came up. His face was loose and flush, eyes swam drunk. Harry watched his eyes determinedly, until they focused on him. The cloud of haze slowly cleared, and Draco looked at him, direct.

Harry felt it, the inevitable, unutterable truth, at the centre and border of him. Draco frowned at him, confused. At his throat and mouth, and spoke it.

Harry stared intently at him, a hard concrete stare. "I want you."

Draco just watched him, as if he spoke another language. Then his face twitched, brow furrowing. He stepped back messily, staring.

And staring. Harry broke it, looked to the floor. He felt a rush of winds in him, taking his breath and centre, but merely looked down.

Draco was too still, and when Harry glanced up once he saw his eyes were swirling. Harry breathed deliberately, and after a while shifted up to watch him. Draco's eyes were wet, and catching Harry's eye, he finally broke. He looked away, and moved down the hall messily, grabbing the hallway drunkenly, into the kitchen.

"Draco –" Harry said, too quiet.

But he was gone, and Harry heard fumbled clicks of a Muggle lighter, struggling against fingers. A deep weight of pain sank in his stomach, and he closed his eyes.


	26. Nil

red wine lips, rain clutter, Hold - Vera Blue. perhaps these boys are the voices at war in my head

* * *

"You don't want me."

Harry heard it smudged into a pillow, as Draco lay boneless on the couch, drooping off. He was taking off Draco's shoes in the darkened night flat, nudging them from limb feet, and looked over at a half-cast face. Draco's eyes were closed, lips parted in sleep. But they murmured again.

"You don't."

The drunken slur rung in Harry as he lay alone in the messy bed. He closed the door.

He woke up to the sound of a door clicking shut. His head jerked up in a sleepy groan. A light curl of steam rose from a delicate mug on the bedside table, bitter coffee cut through the pale morning. Despite himself, he felt his lips quirk up.

Walking with the peace-offering heavy in his cocooned hands, he found Draco stretched languidly over the balcony. Harry leaned back against it, watching him, but Draco was unseeing and still.

"I know what this is," said Draco, voice gravelled. He looked pale and bleary like he hadn't slept.

Harry watched him carefully, his blurry edges.

"I know you, Potter," said Draco, toneless.

"Then you should've guessed," said Harry bluntly.

Draco smiled, a slow smirk that didn't reach his eyes. "You don't want me. You pity me."

Harry frowned. "Wha –?"

"I'm broken and you want to fix me," said Draco, smiling at nothing. "Outreach for the lost cause."

Harry shook his head slowly. "I don't …"

Draco's eyes were distant. "Your saviour complex," he said flatly. "Maybe I've shown you a sliver of light, so you want to draw it out. Mould me. To feel as if you can make a difference, as if you matter."

Harry felt a distant flash of anger. "You're talking shit."

Draco turned to look at him, tracing his face lazily. "No I'm not," he said quietly, and looked away.

"You do good for the sake of good," he continued. "To satisfy some needling concern, that maybe you aren't good enough, or so you like yourself, or so you mean something."

Harry blinked, but something needled his stomach. "That's not what this is."

Draco looked down at the street. "You're so damn predictable."

Anger broiled him in a quick stab. "Maybe I just try, and do good, to be good," he said.

Draco smiled unfeelingly. "To what effect? People are a blur, or disappointments. The world's a mess."

Harry frowned, and paused. "You're not making sense."

"Nothing does," said Draco, tilted his head back.

Harry just watched him, blank.

"Look," Draco sighed. "Good and bad are just interchangeable with pity and indifference. You pity me, you don't want me. You want yourself, as you imagine yourself to be, patching me up."

Harry blinked, opened and closed his mouth. "Surely you can't believe that," he got out.

Draco shrugged loosely. "Actions are just efforts, and consequences are unpredictable. You only do it for the sake of being good, as you see it."

"That's just a way out."

"Maybe," Draco was unseeing. "But it's just as correct as you. Which is my point. You can't change people, and when you do it's just accidental and unpredictable. Not because of your good intentions."

The anger grew hot. "What about the war? All the good."

Draco stiffened slightly, but didn't look at him. "What about it? If you had failed they would have just crafted the story differently. How you were foolish or arrogant, so it fit their story better. Just as you wanting me fits this story better."

Harry shook his head, confused. "You're not making sense, again."

"It never does, again. People just look out for themselves. I'd be just a means for your end."

"You sound like a Slytherin," said Harry in a hard tone.

Draco laughed. "Funny how you always thought that was an insult." He perched a cigarette between his lips and lit it. "Maybe it is. Maybe Gryffindor is what you believe in. But does that mean I'm wrong?"

Harry didn't know what to say, wasn't sure why any of this was being said.

"I'm just as right," Draco exhaled morning smoke. "Unfortunately though, that part defeats your argument. There's no strict line between good and evil. It's all a blur."

"You're wrong," Harry stared determinedly at him, wanted to pull his face to meet him. "There's always power in what we do. Every time we try at good, at better, it means something."

Draco smiled, almost sadly. "Maybe to you, Harry," he sounded resigned, and met Harry's eyes. "But you can't predict or control anything. You can't change people."

"That indifference," Harry blurted, and took a measured breath. "That's what's evil. Voldemort was indifferent."

Draco flinched slightly, and looked away.

"Surely you believe that?" Harry demanded.

"What does it matter what I think?" Draco said emptily. "It matters to me, but doesn't change anything."

"Cruelty is evil, violence," said Harry, staring.

"Maybe," Draco shifted, and perched lean fingers round a mug. "But there's always a place for violence. I remember watching you kill a man."

Harry watched him sip on coffee, and felt quick bursts of violent anger, of numb sadness, of hurt. Before it resigned, after a while, to something hollow.

Harry shifted closer, watching his own hands. "Then what?" he said quieter. "What now?"

Draco was quiet for a while, eyes fixed and still. "All I know is that I seem to be alive at this moment, and this coffee tastes delicious."

Harry clenched his jaw and exhaled. He spun and went inside stormily. He was a muddle – he did several things at once, started cooking, went to make sub-par coffee, thought to leave. He ended up making a violent mess of the kitchen, starting and burning several meals, before settling on a pear, before catching the Luca reference and throwing it with quick reflexes out the window.

He glanced up mid-spin to see Draco watching him, leaning against the balcony window.

"I thought of all people you'd understand," said Draco. "You're all pure nerve and intuition."

"No," Harry said hotly, pulling open drawers. "I make choices, I don't just cop out."

"You're transparent," Draco said, a smile in his voice. Harry snapped up to meet his cool gaze. Draco watched him measuredly, and Harry dropped his hands.

Harry moved across the flat to him in slow deliberate steps, holding his gaze, and stood in front of him, close.

"So, what now?" he repeated with infliction.

Draco searched him slowly, eyes flat. Harry frowned deeper at the silence. Draco's lips slowly slid up, watching him closely. "You're even more attractive when you're angry," he said quietly, and reached up to skim his thumb along Harry's unshaven jaw.

"Wha –?" Harry jerked back slightly, but Draco's thumb held him there. Draco ducked in to press a light kiss just above his jawline, and a tingle of coffee and rosemary swept over him.

Harry frowned at him when he pulled away, but Draco smiled. "Come on," he said, moving towards the hallway. "I'll take you to real coffee."

"You're a bastard," said Harry without feeling, and Draco's laugh echoed in the hallway.

"You don't want to see my place of occupation?" called Draco.

"Do you work with Luca?" said Harry in a reckless surge, walking. He caught a brief flash in Draco's eyes when he caught up, and felt satisfied. But his face evened out and considered Harry.

"He might be there," said Draco flatly.

"What was his use?" spurred Harry and Draco's eyes grew violent. "Was he a tool for your personal gain?"

Grey eyes stirred dangerously at him, before they narrowed, and closed over to slates.

"I already told you," said Draco slowly. "I was curious."

"You're full of shit," said Harry, and moved past him out the door, but Draco caught his arm.

Draco's eyes were hard, but he seemed to hesitate. "We're fucked up," he said quietly, and frowned lightly. "I can't pretend to understand what's going on, with us."

Harry considered him carefully. "If you're indifferent, let me go," he said slowly.

Draco traced his face with heavy eyes, a breath away. "You're –" he glanced away. Harry watched him, brows creased. He touched Draco's fingers on his arm, and his eyes flicked up to meet his. A light curl swam in the grey. "You're the only constant thing I have," Draco said quietly. His long fingers weaved lightly through Harry's.

Harry watched him, a swell blooming hollow and deep in him. "So have me," he whispered.

Draco looked away, his fingers encircled Harry's tighter. "I want you here. Is that not enough?"

Harry watched him closely until his eyes met his, and felt himself smile slowly. "You're still an asshole." Draco smiled tentatively and looked away. Harry drew their linked fingers to his mouth, kissed a finger gently. Draco watched his mouth, his eyes a haze of uncertain movement.

"Coffee?" he said quietly, and met Harry's eyes. Harry nodded, and felt the unsaid words in the swirls of Draco's eyes. The hesitation and want, need and doubt, in tight bounds and vapour.

Draco's small smile grew, and his fingers spread to clutch Harry tight, before the world ended around them.

They materialized in the cobble-stoned street between two buildings, in the pastel town. Small wooden buildings and houses, all tones of pale white and lavender and blue, stain-glass windows and ashy leafless trees like black bones. And soft pearly blue stones and paint flaked archways, grey people and skies all treading through the soft languid morning like flattening clouds. Harry felt Draco relax beside him, and his face reflected all the colourless hue, set against his black clothes.

He pulled out a cigarette to commemorate. "Here's where you assaulted me," he exhaled a soft cloud. Harry nudged into him pointedly, so Draco's balance teetered. He grabbed Harry's wrist gently. "Petty Potter," he sighed, and pulled them into the street.

They walked into a dark, warm café. Dark tattered wood lined the place, warmed by the brooding light of glow. Candles sat on every stooped wooden table, splatters of wax hardened on aged wood, and iron embroidered candles on the boarded walls. Worn-out couches sat in corners and small huddles, near bookshelves stacked with aging paper and tattered bindings, all falling out loose. A small fringe of people were spread loose around the café, reading in corners or chatting at tables. The counter rounded like an old-fashioned bar, with a bustle of people behind shiny machines.

It was like they had walked into the barrel of a pirate ship.

"This is where I was born again," said Draco airily, threw an arm out carelessly. Air and dust hovered languidly as they stood by the door, a mix of morning and candle light.

"Phoenix, right?" Harry smiled lightly, watching him.

Draco laughed, the side of his face aglow as his eyes flit around the café. "From the ashes," he said emptily, but Harry caught the heavy depth of his eyes. The seriousness, an aged stir. He drew light fingers over his pale hand, weaving them together. Draco glanced at him, and noticing his careful stare, clutched his hand and nodded slightly.

"Draco, darling," they turned to a bubbly voice; Ava sprung like a fox to them. Draco detangled, and went forward to kiss her cheek.

"You remember Harry?" said Draco politely, but drifted away loosely to the silver machines. "I am deprived, fix me."

Ava laughed lightly. "Nice to see you again, Harry." Her fawn hair fell in a very long, messy braid over her shoulder, and her hands were clustered in heavy silver rings on each finger, the amber rocks matching her eyes. She went round the bar and moved expertly with the machine, while Draco hovered watchfully.

"Harry!" Lee sprung up from nowhere, behind the bar.

"Regulations, Lee," said Draco, shaking his head.

"Just visiting," she laughed, and kissed Ava's freckles. Before she swept around, raven hair swinging, and pulled Harry into a hug. She wore stomping black leather boots that argued with her twinkling eyes. "I'm so glad you're here."

"Oh," said Harry, smiling tentatively, while Draco laughed.

"They're in love with you," he said, scratching his chin, eyes on the machine still. "They don't stop talking about you."

"Right," smiled Lee, and shared a glance with Ava. "Whatever you say, Draco."

"Come on, woman," Draco said, tousling his hair with restless hands.

"Here, you monster," said Ava, passed over an opaque black shot with a beige brim. Draco knocked it down in one, and laughed to the ceiling.

Draco swept to a table in a darkened corner, under a window brimmed with an aquatic green hue. It gave the illusion of the dark barrel creaking underwater. He sat opposite Harry, with a tall glass of coffee and ice in one hand and a frivolous sprinkled one in the other. Harry shook his head at it in exasperation, just to hide how damn good it was.

When Harry looked up, he saw Draco watching him expectantly. "What?"

Draco raised his eyebrows, and gestured around the café with a loose hand.

"Oh," Harry laughed. He wanted feedback. "It's … a lot. It's its own place."

Draco raised an eyebrow, and Harry grinned at him. "It makes sense. It's easy to escape here," he continued.

Draco looked faintly surprised, considering him.

"You ran away," said Harry. "Right?"

"Hmm," said Draco vaguely. His fingers twitched around the glass, the coffee diluted in slow brown swirls into the ice, and looked away. "Is that what you're doing?" he said.

Harry frowned. "Running away?"

"People don't always run away to places," Draco said vaguely. Something stirred in Harry's stomach, it rang true and heavy. He frowned at him, thinking.

Ava trotted over and slid more quick shots on the table, passing by. Draco smiled vacantly out the window. "I thought," he hesitated, with faraway eyes. "She looks like Weasley a bit."

"When you thought I was interested?" Harry grinned, and Draco's lips twitched. "I thought she was with Lee?"

Draco caught his meaning. "She likes whatever, not just girls."

Harry nodded slowly, looking away. He wondered what 'whatever' meant, whether there was a limit. Whether the lack of limit was the point, and where he fit in it. When he looked back, Draco was watching him carefully.

"Have you thought more about that?" he said quietly.

He had. He watched people, found himself comparing. There was a binary to it, but also ambivalence. He liked the way girls moved and looked and felt, and could appreciate boys, as if a forked branch. But he saw wide-stanced girls, clapping shoulders and rubbing jaws, and curled-in boys, soft smiles and twirling hair. It was separate, but not in a way he'd assumed – he found himself liking the expression of it, the smudge, rather than the thing itself. It was blurred grey, but it was kaleidoscope rainbow.

"Yeah," Harry said slowly. "I think I'm … impartial."

Draco nodded slowly, eyes fixed on him. "I wouldn't understand. I prefer." He sipped lightly, rolled his shoulders and looked away. "Words are so finite. We forget we made them up."

Harry caught his eye and smiled. "Martyr."

Draco laughed softly. "Death Eater," his eyes grew light as glass, and smile fell. "We erase people."

Harry watched his vacant stare, a grey haze as his mind spun around itself, and a slow warmth bloomed in his stomach and crept through his being. He thought of his dull red and grey memories of him; the snide jabs and smirk, his tortured eyes. And the boy he knew and ran away to and burrowed in, ate and talked and didn't talk with, slept entwined with. The struggle that quivered and wracked him to pain and vacancy. He was so full. All his electric, enigmatic beauty.

Harry watched the boy before him, and thought about erasure.

At one point, Draco's face closed over. His eyes fixed on something behind Harry. "The action begins," he said, so quietly Harry thought it wasn't for him.

Harry turned, and saw a tall boy cross the wooden floor to the bar and lean casually on it, a bright loose smile fixed at Ava. They talked cheerily, and Harry vaguely recognised him from the Muggle bar, leaning into Draco's ear. His brown curls were tucked loose behind an ear, and his face lax and placid as if never creased with stress. He was shrugging, smiling loose, with a fruit crate tucked under toned, tanned arms. His crinkled eyes drifted over to them, and Harry hastily turned back around.

"Draco!" called a lazy drawl. Harry frowned at the accent, trying to decipher. He felt a quick chill on the back of his neck, and Draco's arms shot up instantly to catch the hurling apple. He caught Harry's eye, and took a delicate bite.

"Hey," the voice came nearer, and Harry turned to the boy's bright smile. "Wondered when you'd pop in again." His accent drawled loose and words blurred together, a permanent casual tilt.

Draco smiled. Harry saw the light tease at the corner of his lips that was hard to catch. "Luca," he said airily, and gestured. "Harry."

Luca caught his eye and grinned. "Hey," he held out his arm, and Harry smiled politely and shook his warm calloused hand. Luca's blue eyes slid, and seemed happily unaware of the unarguable tension that sat, fat on the table.

Harry caught Draco's curious gaze, and saw his smile grow, caught between teeth. Harry rose an eyebrow slightly, and Draco smiled at him, slid gracefully out of his seat. "Come on," he said. "I'll buy you your damn hot chocolate, you foreign peasant."

Luca shrugged, and Harry got the impression he did that a lot. He laughed placidly and drifted behind Draco to the bar. Harry watched, and blinked. He turned to his drink, slid it between hands like a Quaffle, eyes on the game.

"So," said Draco later, walking close to Harry and tilting his head up to the light misty rain. "What do you think?"

The cobbled street was grey with overcast. Harry heard the light tease, deeper layer, to his voice. "Of him?" he asked, and Draco merely watched the sky, eyes narrowed. "He's so," Harry thought. "Happy. Australian?" Harry guessed, and Draco nodded.

"He's studying abroad, just for a while," he said greyly, and hesitated. "He's leaving soon."

Harry nodded slowly. It didn't make sense; Luca was so neutral, he got the impression he would agree passively to anything, shrug it off. And yet, Pansy was so calculating, Blaise so brooding. Draco so multi-dimensional.

Draco smiled slightly. "Happy," he repeated, and sighed. "He's like that in bed too," he said, stretching his arms loosely to the sky, and Harry's stomach tightened. "Agreed a little too much, if you get what I mean. You almost want critique after all that nodding –"

"Draco," blurted Harry, shooting out an arm to stop him walking. Draco's eyes shot to him, a sly tease tugged his lip. Harry watched him; a lick of anger teased his insides, amid exasperation. Of course Draco liked a challenge.

With that, he understood with a neat click in his head.

"He's leaving," repeated Harry, and Draco raised his eyebrows. "How convenient for you."

Draco frowned, a quick burn tempered in his sharp eyes. "Convenient," he said slowly.

"It's easy," said Harry, his tone hard. "He's not a constant."

Draco eyes grew cold. "That's people for you. Convenience rules."

"No," Harry said sharply. "There's always a choice." Their balcony conversation lingered in the uneasy air between them, the flare in their fixed eyes.

"Maybe what's easy is what's right," said Draco, watching him carefully.

Harry's jaw clenched, but in a wild dart his hand clasped another, cold and whirring under his. "Then it's not right," he said and gripped his hand. "It means nothing."

Draco's eyes stirred, and flit down to their linked hands. "Harry," he said quietly.

Harry watched his quiver, the little darts in his face, eyes downcast. He warned Draco, clutching tight, before they Apparated.

The flat spilled over grey, the mist outside fogging the window. They remained still, hands linked, watching the slow tear trails lining the windows. Harry traced his inner wrist lightly, and Draco's eyes fluttered close, before he moved fluidly to the kitchen, his back to Harry as he brewed coffee.

Lou scratched at the window, damp on the balcony, but Draco left the door closed.

* * *

of course the only characters from my homeland has the most carefree "yeah nah yeah nah" attitude


	27. Autumn

skin dreams and better things, Radiohead - Motion Picture Soundtrack (ivy rose cover)

if you're wondering what Draco smells like, crush a sprig of sun-softened rosemary with a bud of dried lavender, just ground dark coffee and leftover cigarette smoke on fingers, maybe press in aged paper. if you're here to read drarry fanfiction and aren't a fucking loon, please continue

* * *

It was winter in the flat.

Rain pattered lightly as Harry lay sprawled on the couch, arm like clay over his forehead and eyes bleary. Small shudders and scratches came from the floor; Draco sat cross-legged, arms spin-wheeling as he ground coffee. The grinder looked just about ready to fall apart, held together by a chipped wooden skeleton. Draco seemed to not consider this as he spun wildly in ritual rounds.

Harry yawned widely. A breeze, licked by icy rain, swirled from the cracked open window, and he stretched against it, pulling his body loose. Draco looked up, and Harry caught his intent gaze from the corner of groggy eyes. Draco moved the cigarette from behind his ear, sucked contemplatively, considering Harry with narrowed eyes.

When Harry raised his eyebrows, Draco broke the gaze to exhale smoke and stand up abruptly. He pad over to the kitchen, flicked the cigarette aside and began pulling over drawers. Harry watched, yawning.

When Draco came back he was holding bunches of wiry branches – no, pine needles. Harry frowned at him. "Why," he said.

Draco shot him a wicked grin, before his face grew soft and flat and dropped the bundle on the table. Harry watched it blearily, before he sat up and frowned. Draco moved to the balcony, and came back with brown leaves like large dried palms and shut the door against the icy wind. He moved like a breeze, grabbed red and golden glinted apples and bruised apricots from the kitchen, and arranged it all on the table.

Harry watched him. Draco considered the arrangement with such intention, like a puzzle. "I'm still trying to figure out what this place is," he said slowly.

Harry considered it too, then shook his head slightly at Draco in confusion. "It's from the Forbidden Forest," Draco said.

Harry had a fleeting image of white blonde hair between dark trees climbing to the sky. Harry palmed a scratchy rough bundle, and tied it together neatly. The pine, earthy balm sprung up, coating his skin. He arranged the fruit and leaves neatly, and leaned back.

They considered it, the warm, earthy entanglement, against the cold, still flat. "It's …" Harry began. Different.

Draco nodded slightly, in reply to unsaid words. Before he dart out, grabbed it all in clusters and threw them loosely. It all cascaded the floor, fruit rolling; he moved to sprinkle it lightly like décor.

"And some seasoning," he said grandly, and moved to grab a sandstone jar. He drizzled russet powder over the scene; notes of cinnamon mixed with the pine.

Harry shook his head again, watching it all. "You're mad," he smiled, before yawning wildly again, ruffling his hair. Draco broke from his intent sweeping gaze, and met his eyes. He considered Harry, and his lips twitched.

"Come on, sleepy," he said softly, throwing out a lazy hand. Harry grabbed it loosely and allowed himself to be pulled across the forest floor. It sponged against sleepy feet.

Draco flopped on the bed and Harry crawled in after him; he sunk into a pillow, closed his eyes and felt his body melt. Draco's warm, heavy body shifted, moved Harry onto his back, tilting him with a warm hand on his hip. Harry groaned sleepily as Draco shifted over him, his laugh buried into his neck. He kissed it; warm, light kisses moved against his skin. Little nuzzles and soft sounds, and Harry sighed. "Sleep."

He felt a smile against him, and the kisses lingered, grew on his neck. Hands thread through his hair, and Draco nibbled his skin. "I love your neck," he mumbled.

Harry groaned again. "I knew it."

Draco moved against his skin and laughed. He sucked lightly, before tightening his hold and his kisses grew harder, and Harry felt his body stir amid sleepiness, grow flush. His mouth moved slow and fervently, branded him with sucks and bites. A hot spill went down Harry's body, darts of pleasure erupting in a rush.

He exhaled long and wrapped slow arms around Draco's waist, to press into him. Draco's lips climbed up his jaw; Harry's breath grew shallow, heat fused in him, and when Draco drew a tongue under his jaw he felt his hips twitch forward involuntarily. He felt a smile against skin, and a hand skirt down his chest in a long caress.

Draco's lips were at his ear. "We could still fuck," he whispered.

Harry's body started pulsing at his words and his throat caught, but he shook his head. "That's not what I want."

He felt a smile tickle his ear, and a hand slid under his shirt, a slow heat over his lower stomach, and traced the line of hair down to his pants. Harry pulsed as fingers inched slowly over the material, skimmed the top of his hard outline. "Sure about that?" said Draco, soft in his ear.

Harry's stomach flipped and electricity erupted through his body. "Stop it," he said clearer, and shifted out of his touch. "You know how I feel."

Draco grew still. Before he pulled back slightly and sighed. "How you feel."

He shifted slow off Harry, but Harry shot up and caught his chin in a firm hold, and angled it up. He looked hard at him. "Yes," he said slow and deliberate. "How I feel."

Draco studied him, a curious stir in the grey, before he frowned slightly. His head ducked down, out of sight, and he shifted to fall on his back. Their sides pressed against each other; the still room disrupted by their matched breathing.

They revolver-doored through the evening. Harry drifted in and out of lazy grey sleep, and Draco wandered in and out of the room, mumbling to himself and something wilting in a slow burn in his hands. He tacked it all, when Harry drifted out and found Draco buried in him, on his skin; burns of cigarettes and aged dusty paper and apricots. When Harry moved, Draco mumbled, "You."

"Hmm?" He peered at the midnight room momentarily, before resigning into his exhaustion and settling into the dark.

"For you," Draco mumbled, shifting slightly into him. "It was too cold."

His sleep-addled mind couldn't compute, so he merely let himself be pulled in.

Harry woke to soft movement, warm hands on him. He stretched in soft sheets and opened bleary eyes; Draco moved loose and stretched like a cat into him. It was a night time day, with the still, cold tiredness of night lingering in day light, without coffee or consciousness in a room with the door shut. Draco's arm was creeping under Harry's shirt, head ducked to press light kisses on his stomach.

"What are you doing?" Harry mumbled groggily.

Draco moved in long, tired movements, kissing up to his chest slowly, pausing to press his tongue. "You taste like fire," he said quietly.

Harry frowned; he sounded half-asleep.

"Like ash," Draco drew his shirt up to his shoulders, lining kisses across his chest.

"Says you," Harry said, and started when his nipple snagged on teeth. "You're basically a walking cigarette."

"No," more distinct, and Draco smiled against his skin. He drew the shirt up pointedly, so Harry leaned up with a sigh and allowed it to be pulled off in a slow curl. Draco moved to his neck with a hot, explorative mouth. "Mine's pollution. Yours is like …" he paused; a kiss lingered under his jaw like slow silk, tasting him. "Hot coals and sunshine."

Harry stretched up smiling, exposing more neck. "Not addictive, then," he laughed. Warmth lit in flame and flutter through him, and he climbed sleepy arms around Draco.

Draco shook his head slightly, kissing down to his collarbones, long and lingering in the hollows. "You're irresistible," he whispered.

Harry jerked slightly, tilted his head towards him. A glow lightened and warmed him to bodiless light, but his mind buzzed. Draco shifted more over him, uncurling to lie flat and Harry's hands drew under his shirt as if reflexively, flat palms sparse on his back.

Draco's fingers knead circles on his hips, thumbs skimming under his pants. Harry blinked. "Since when did you even want me like that?" he said, but Draco felt far away, caught up in his travel.

"Hmm," mumbled Draco, moving down to draw patterns with his tongue in the lines of his stomach. "Perhaps somewhere between kissing you every day and sleeping with you every night?"

Harry blinked again. "Oh, right." He frowned slightly, and Draco slid up him. "You make it sound so obvious."

Draco's lips explored his neck. "Obvious," he repeated with an edge. His arms climbed under Harry's shoulders, and pulled him close to sift into something, a sudden alignment. Harry frowned at it, at the strange fit.

Draco answered to it, clung Harry close and buried his face, and Harry's body flared violently when he felt hips move against his. "You're such a tease," Harry got out, forcing his hands still.

Draco exhaled sharply, and smiled against him. "First thing you'll learn about me in the bedroom," he murmured.

Harry sighed. "Of course you are," he said, and jolted when hips moved, when a hard ridge become distinguishable, within the bodiless fit moving in a slow tease.

"Let me," Draco whispered, a light tongue traced delicately. "Just let go."

And Harry wanted to, to give in. Draco murmured under his ear. "I want you."

Heat ran through Harry in ultraviolent pulses, but he frowned amid it, the hot wreck. "You want my body," his voice caught, but his hands shot down to still Draco's hips.

"Hmm," Draco mumbled vaguely, and his hands moved to cover Harry's. "How to seduce a Gryffindor," he said airily.

Draco tossed his head back with an air of grandeur, and smirked down at Harry. His eyes spun loose; slow burning grey embers, before he leaned in to nibble Harry's lips. "Adventure," he mumbled. "Daring."

Harry sighed, but his nerves sprung on edge, sinking slow into a hot spill he knew and fought; temptation. "Intimacy," said Draco pensively. "What's intimate?" he asked no one.

Harry clutched hard, to still slow grinding hips and Draco laughed. He moved to press his mouth along Harry's neck. "Your eyes," he murmured quietly.

"Mmm?"

Draco kissed in slow intervals. "Your eyes have always –" he paused. "Struck me."

Harry frowned. "Always?" he repeated.

Draco didn't reply, skirting up his throat, and thread fingers through Harry's. "How to seduce Harry Potter," his hands gripped and drew Harry's arms up, to slide above his head and held them there. Harry's body flared and beat, but he was thinking. "That's the thing with powerful people," Draco smiled under his jaw. "They surprisingly love to be overpowered."

Harry moved liquidly under him, body involuntarily responding in slow movements and Draco mumbled indistinctly into Harry, what sounded like encouragements – but some loose strand came to the forefront of his thoughts, and he jut up under Draco, clutching him hard. Draco's smile grew, but Harry pushed him, rolled with vigour to tower over him. Draco was stronger than he looked and fought against him, in a struggle before Harry slammed him down flat, a taloned grip on his shoulders.

He stared hard at him; Draco looked faintly surprised. "I'm not a prize, Draco," Harry said slow and distinct. "I know what I want."

Draco looked between his eyes, his confidence faltered. Harry held his gaze, before letting him go and rolling up.

Draco was still as Harry grabbed his shirt, rolled it back on and ruffled his hair, and only sat up once Harry stood. "You always wear that," he said quietly, and Harry's head dropped, frowned at the floor.

"These damn, old soft things," Draco's hand trailed Harry's tattered flannel, and Harry rubbed his face tiredly.

"Draco," he sighed soft.

Draco interrupted. "How's your Potion project going?" And Harry stood straighter, suddenly still. "I hear your partner's a vagrant that moves where the wind blows, or I should say smoke."

"Fuck," Harry blurted. "I've done nothing."

Draco laughed loud, sinking into the bed. "Neither."

"Oh, fuck," Harry repeated, and groaned tiredly. He flopped face-first onto the bed to swear into the covers. "Fuck."

Draco laughed relentlessly, shifting over to curl around him; he thread soft fingers through his hair, legs entwining.

"We're going to fail," mumbled Harry, and Draco kissed the back of his neck softly. Harry was utterly lost and disorientated in this whirlwind room with this whirlwind boy. "Is it a school day?"

Draco's body shook in silent laughter. "I don't even know."

"We're fucking hopeless," Harry said and Draco laughed wildly.

"Harry," he said, loose arms climbing round Harry, hands in his hair. "We both didn't come back to Hogwarts to just pass."

Harry lay still and soft, thinking over his words.

They climbed out of the damn nest, Apparated back to Hogwarts with Harry's declarative "We're going back," and Draco's negotiation; he compromised after a long-winded meaningless sprawl of an argument to no liquor, a pocket of cigarettes and a coat of coffee. Harry blinked away his vacant glaze with smooth thumbs on the bed, so Draco rolled his eyes and finally nodded. He stood and took Harry's arm.

Draco seemed determined on his new fix. It hung over Harry, its deep purple obsession; in every damn lick and bite of Draco's lips while he watched Harry, in curious cruel hands, suggestive stares. Like a tense undercurrent that broke, crumbling into the space in hot violet flames and waves. Draco trailed him; with lingering lips on his skin, a slow flame that danced in his eyes. It hung, in heavy fumes and stains that swarmed him and Harry doubted every time why he was resisting.

But he did. He couldn't wrestle away the idea that he would become the sprinkles of ash and powder, the expired plants and skins, the dissipating smoke from the corner of his mouth. If he gave in, let Draco go and fold into his body, Harry would burn out into the heap of dust. Fade, into grey.

They swept across the dewy grounds, and Harry only realised they were nudging into each other in light conversation, swinging their arms in sync and in tangles as Draco talked posh to the sky and Harry laughed, when they arrived at the imposing doors.

It was like a third person interrupted them; Hogwarts. They stilled; Draco's arms dropped and they stepped distinctly apart. As people weaved around them, faces pulling back to catch on them amidst the light chatter of the morning, Harry caught his eye and they searched each other, before Draco's face evened out. But Harry smiled lightly.

"Quidditch was good this morning," he said quietly.

Draco watched him, still. When Harry raised his eyebrows, his lips twitched. "Too bad you lost," Draco said quieter.

And so, they walked in together.

When Harry Apparated back, even before dinner and long before Draco, he noticed that Draco was right. He stopped walking abruptly at the end of the hallway, looked around the place. It was less cold. The forest floor lent to an undercurrent of growth, with warm reds oranges russets and browns in the mess of miscellaneous. A centrepiece that felt alive, for the first time, without a dust-like pale boy drifting around. Not a floating pale sphere in the sky, placeless. It grew on its own, with autumn roots.

Harry could not get used to the stares that followed them through the castle, could never shake off the murmurs and shock and acidic attention. The third person that invaded their space. But it was hardly competing with the other, relentless thing.

Draco Malfoy seemed designed to taunt him.

* * *

Thank you, to people  
some of you are so personal and open; I love the snippets of raw person that comes through like bright different coloured lights, it always makes me smile and it's something magical

also of course my patronus is a damn dark deathly Thestral

"Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power." - Oscar Wilde


	28. Blush

tiger snake, crema, Clair de Lune - Flight Facilities, iris

* * *

Harry's hand trailed thin paper, but he could not look away. Draco was like reflective coloured glass. Little darts and fractures over his face.

They sat between towering shelves, opposite each other with books between them, pulled apart from stacks and strewn loose in an overlapping mess. Harry let the light breeze from the open window flicker through pages, so they flipped slow on his lap, as his eyes glazed. Draco read intently, shuffling through books to halt mid-sentence and climb more on his lap to cast them aside. In the stale morning light, they were swallowed up by the space and books, but they toppled in as well. Like an unfolding secret; in the discarded mugs and butts, in their stretched out legs, lay alternating each other.

It didn't take much to convince Harry to go to the library, but to work through their project, well. It seemed like a lost cause to him, but Draco dragged him along with chatter and sighs and coffee, that all fell once they found a private alcove. His usual fixed stare and absorbed mind, however, splintered.

There were cracks in his composure, and Harry could see a blur of things underneath, little lights and threads of thoughts and expression. Curiosity as he read, confusion and irritation and intent, exhaustion at his edges. As if a vast, complex mosaic pattern. But there was not more of him; Harry felt there was less, less of a cover, for his eyes. His unpredictable moon phases became pale, at his skin.

Harry dawdled, and Draco invited him in, shooting him half-exasperated half-amused looks when not intently reading; pale facets of energy and life swirling in and through him, invading the space.

Harry felt as if he could stare at him forever.

At one point, Harry felt something hum on his lips, a thread that had been rolling slowly in his mind for a while. He let it slip out, watching the window. "I was thinking of coming out."

Draco's hands stilled. He remained fixed, but looked up after a moment. His leg between Harry's twitched. "You're telling the world about fraternizing with the enemy," he said, an empty question.

Harry felt a flicker of irritation. "Enemy?" he repeated. Draco said nothing, watching him lazily. "Not about you. You don't own my sexuality."

Draco frowned at him. "That's not what I meant."

"You sparked something," Harry said, holding his gaze. "But it's me, now."

Draco's lips parted and his eyes stirred, before closing in. He turned to the window, but Harry caught the mouthed words, echoed in the silence. I sparked it.

"I thought you knew that," he said, frowning. "But to my friends, their family. I'm sure about it now, it feels like I'm lying –"

"How long," Draco interrupted, and then closed his mouth abruptly, turned away.

"What?" Harry searched him, his faraway stare. "I told you. Recently. This year, it was all there but I only grew aware recently." Draco was unchanged, but some thread tugged in Harry's mind, at the momentary incredulous flash in his grey eyes before he turned away. "Why?"

Draco smiled slightly, lazy and slow. Harry's frown grew. "How –" he paused, thinking. "How long have you been attracted to me?"

Harry saw a flash of teeth, before Draco's face evened to a smaller smile, eyes closed. "You won't like the answer to that," Draco said blandly.

"What," Harry searched him, before he laughed. "I think we can safely say you are attracted to me, Draco Malfoy."

Draco shook his head with a bleary smile. "Nothing," he said palely. "So," he sighed. "Are you going to mention our tumultuous affair?" An effortless jest, and met Harry's eyes lazily.

Harry looked back, before gently moving aside the heavy book and flattening hands on his thighs. He held Draco's gaze. "Yeah, I was," he said slowly.

Draco smiled and nodded slowly, before looking past him at nothing again. "We're in the Restricted Section," he said quietly.

Harry jerked slightly, frowning. "What?"

"You don't think there's a reason for that?" Draco said emptily, eyes tracing the shelves. "That we hardly see midday. That we live like Muggles. Leave Hogwarts."

Harry's mind spun. "You think I'm ashamed?"

Draco laughed without feeling. "Maybe you should be, but not that. You don't want our world knowing as much as I don't. Besides, what are you going to tell them? What useful word describes this?"

Harry watched him, a bitter flare resigning slowly to a grey hollow smudge. Draco turned back to the books in the silence that followed, but Harry alternated between watching him and the sky. He felt it, that heavy weight, that anchored everything else and every meaningless spiel and every argument and snippet of sense that pushed away the inevitable truth; he felt it, and when the day faded in the slow hours that passed, he tossed it in the space between them.

It was evening outside, Draco was lost and Harry was watching him. It fell out.

"You're just scared."

Draco went still at his quiet voice. His face was ducked into a book, but he could see the gentle war that flickered over it, before Harry looked away and stood up slowly. He found he didn't want to see or hear the fallout. He scrambled his stuff slowly, numb, and walked out.

Harry was scratching the wooden table, carving indistinctly as he sipped breakfast. Black coffee in a slow morning, early enough that the Hall was quiet and lax with slow chatter. His eyes lost focus; they had since waking to a slow broil of black nightmares, sleeping alone on fabric frays and peels and couch – but started abruptly upon noticing a tall figure, suddenly in front of him, amid a quietening room.

Harry straightened up. He blinked at Draco, who looked down at him with amusement, before sliding in opposite him.

"Well," Draco said airily, peering down the Gryffindor table. "I feel braver already."

Harry searched him, ignored the heavy feel of a Hall full of eyes, and Draco met his gaze hesitantly. Pale, grey morning Draco, with bite and blear.

Harry raised his eyebrows. "Is this you changing your mind?"

Draco rolled his eyes, and inspected toast between fingers like pincers. "Don't make breakfast into something else. It's bad enough as it is. You know I hate scheduled meals."

Harry watched him until his eyes flickered, met his. Draco's face softened slightly, with a light grey curl and slow smile. "I almost prefer your cooking," he said quietly.

Harry felt a smile tug up, watching him, with a flutter of warmth in his chest. "You love the chaos of it, that's all. It doesn't bore you."

Draco laughed. "Cooking in suspension," he said, tearing chunks of toast to litter on the table. "Without time or form." He poured two steaming mugs; a spidery hand held up to Harry's face.

Draco interrupted his noise of protest. "Let it happen," he chuckled. "I love this," as Harry huffed in exasperation and a cloud of steam hazed his vision.

Harry grinned openly in his vicinity, shaking his head and taking off his fogged glasses to wipe on his jumper. "Of course you do, anything to disarm me," he said, peering at his blur.

"Stop letting it happen, then," Draco teased – but abruptly grew tall and still. Harry frowned, and with glasses on saw his gaze fixed on something behind Harry. His face hardened, sudden stone. Something swept in, a full presence behind Harry to bunch up on the seat next to him.

"Morning," Ginny said delicately. The air grew dense as the pale yellow morning went cold. She sat tall, her eyes narrowed on food. "Harry. And your charity case."

A stone dropped in Harry's stomach as he swivelled to her. "Ginny," he blurted, a hard warning.

Ginny smiled coldly at him, and she caught Draco's stony gaze. "So, are you looking to get in the Saviour's pants?"

Hot blood surged through Harry, as he gaped at her, temporarily lost for words, while Draco was stone still. His hands quivered.

Ginny poured orange juice slowly, smiling harsh at her glass. "It would be worth it," she said with severity. "I can attest to that."

Draco's arm twitched, and Harry followed the movement – he shot out an arm, to rest on the table between them. Draco met his gaze and looked stonily at him, eyes a violent contradiction, but he dropped his wand arm.

Harry latched onto Ginny's arm, poised on the table. "Leave," he said sharp, clutching hard. "Just go."

Ginny shot her head to him, frowning over angry eyes. A hot flame, like betrayal, shot at him before she darted up and left in a red storm.

Harry looked at the table, fuzzy.

"I'm sorry," he said quietly. "She doesn't think, before she talks. Hot-headed."

Draco was quiet, and Harry met his gaze cautiously. He looked impassive, but a hard stir unset his eyes. In the static silence that followed, he poured and sipped coffee, both stiff and graceful. The air was shot; Harry wondered if he was going to leave.

"Interesting taste in women," he said quietly, and met Harry's eyes over the mug, tentative and gentle.

Harry smiled slowly at him, a slow gracious warmth uncurling in him. His hand moved across the table unthinkably, to curl gently over his elbow; he saw a tender flicker in his still face, and he traced fingers over the soft inner flesh through his shirt. Before Draco's eyes darted to the side, shifting away gently.

"Mind if I join?" They both turned to the quiet voice, and Harry smiled instantly at Hermione.

"Yes," he said, shifting as if to make room. "I mean, no. Sit."

Hermione climbed in and perched, slightly stiff, eyes darting around. She cleared her throat, and made to pour tea. Harry caught Ron's eye, further down the table with Dean and Seamus – all hard-eyed with mixes of confusion, shock and disapproval – and looked away quickly.

Harry felt a wild bubble climb up his throat, and wanted to laugh or yell sharp at someone or crawl away, grabbed toast impulsively and shoved it in his mouth. Draco's shoulders twitched, and Harry caught his eye. Distinctly stiff, he watched Harry, amused and unnerved.

Hermione ignored Ron's pointed look, and perched dainty fingers together. "How's Potions faring, Mal – Draco?" she looked at the table, but flicked her gaze up once.

Harry felt a violent rush of affection for her, amid the incomprehensible mush. Draco was unmoving, but looked almost confused as he searched her.

"We are going to fail," he said, too slow and calm. Harry swung forward, shaking in silent laughter. They ignored him.

"That doesn't sound like you," she said calmly, but fingers played nervously over her mug. "You were always good at Potions." She smiled at him over her slow steam tea. Draco caught her eye, brow creased. A hesitant smile tugged at his mouth, and Harry smiled big and warm at him.

"It's this one's fault," said Draco quietly, and Harry looked up from the table, had swung to lean heavily with his chin on flat arms.

Hermione laughed. "That doesn't surprise me."

Harry held his gaze with narrowed eyes, and raised his eyebrows at his light taunt. He drooped a loose arm, swayed up to snag his chin with a thumbnail, scraping the edge off his sly smile. Draco's eyes stirred in humour, before his face fell in realisation, eyes darting around.

Harry felt a heaviness, on his back and tickling his neck, of people – but merely dragged his hand through his hair as if that was what he intended, and stretched back up. "Draco is a routine-less lost cause," he said lazily. "It's not my fault."

Draco's lips twitched, fingers curling in a pattern on the table. "I've corrupted him, apparently," he said, eyes flickering to Hermione.

Harry sipped coffee, and noticed Hermione looking between them with an unreadable expression. "Yes," she said. "He never used to drink coffee before."

Harry choked slightly, and Draco laughed briefly, before drawing tall with still twitching shoulders.

X

The news that Harry Potter and Draco Malfoy were friends did not fare well. The weight that usually followed Harry grew potent like potion. But Harry had this new found determination; Draco complied with hesitation or shuttered up withdrawal or rolling eyes, at Harry's spring step and smiles. To walk between classes, to sit together in classes, catch each other in the hallways – with a weight, of stares and words and comments, now explicit and heavy. It was sour and acidic, could be crude. But they had both known that. Too well, they had both felt that.

And he found, amid all the senseless, vapid mass that followed him around, that he did want to tell his friends. That they had no idea, how it took him over, what it meant.

But it was not as if he could hide from it; it invaded his public life. The debacle over his body and skin continued – coffee scraps and ash and more. Draco seemed to like him walking around with bloody bruises, a dye that spoke without words; dark wine and dusk bites over his neck, the soft nooks under his forearm, elbow, bicep. It said a lot that it took an awkward encounter, with a snippy Hermione of all people, to remind him that he wasn't a Muggle and could just heal them away. Not that this made a dint; Draco was ruthless. In the same way he fixated on Harry, with dangerous hands and eyes, just tripping over the line. Just antisocial enough at Hogwarts to startle Harry into exasperation or irritation or a pull, a dangerous blurred body, but grab no clear attention. He seemed to loved his own phrase and would flirt with it, would murmur between classes or in passing, behind his shoulder and in entwined fingers, about their affair and fraternizing with the enemy, the scandal, and it would send Harry into a head spin of fury and restraint and resolve, that he could ignore if it wasn't exactly what his body's furious violet storm wanted.

It wouldn't affect Harry if he just wasn't so affected.

And it didn't help that their Bristles Lane world was all taunt and tease. Draco trailed with gentle hands, a lingering touch, lingering on a question. For Harry to answer, but Draco never breached. Instead, he followed; instead of burning away at something in his hands, he was occupied with a new fix – slipped over him with lure and flattery, appreciative of Harry's kiss and touch, sweet like burnt sugar. Or else tease and wicked grins, tasting every inch of him he could reach. Or else a slow burn of taunts and touch, watching Harry dissolve with fingers twisting in sheets.

And it didn't help that Harry loved the lines of his body, with curious hands; loved the feel of his weight over him and fit under him. That the groves of him were now with him; Draco now knew all the dangerous points, with explorative hands and mouth; the soft secrets, to taste his pulse and move over his skin, to crack him open. It shook Harry's resolve.

He was being tested and tried. "I want to feel what you're like, without control," Draco whispered into his hip, kissing the soft inner skin. "I want to see you, stripped back, free," his tongue traced the line of bone. "You're so much. I want to have that."

Harry was hot fever, in arguing hot currents, both pulled in and resolved against. Resigned to nothing, in the darkened room with night shadows. To nothing he whispered, "Have me."

Harry barely heard it; it melted in a blur of lips and skin, he could have imagined it. He was lost, caught between extremes.

"I don't know how."

* * *

"You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star" - Nietzsche


	29. Heathen

dawn laughing, brown sugar, Fingertips - Vera Blue

TW: this chapter contains something similar to a dissociative episode and themes of PTSD

* * *

"So, you're alive."

Ron's voice caught him, on his way to the dormitory. Harry stilled, mid-step. Ron was sprawled on a fire-lit couch, next to a watchful Hermione, who caught his eye and smiled hesitantly.

Harry teetered on his feet. "How long was I gone?"

Ron and Hermione exchanged a look. "A couple of days," said Hermione quietly.

"It's normal, now," said Ron, stretching. But he watched Harry suspiciously. "I suppose you were with Malfoy."

His tone ignited an unexpected flare in Harry's stomach, almost protective. "Yeah," he found his voice angry. "I was."

They looked surprised, and Harry blinked, tried gathering some loose dregs of composure but no words came out; instead he found himself storming to his dormitory and pulling the crimson curtains. He blinked again, and swore crudely to nothing.

When he came back down a moment later, their heads were ducked in quiet conversation. He flopped on a single couch and found he couldn't meet Ron's eyes.

"I'm sorry," he said stiffly. "I don't know why I did that."

They watched him openly, sharing looks, but seemed to sense something about to teeter, so leaned forward to sit on the edge of the couch.

Harry pressed his lips together. "I –" his throat stuck. Words are so finite. Draco was right. There were no useful words. "I realized that I am," he stared hard at the floor, and felt their stares like bright lights. "Or that I'm not. I'm not straight."

When he slid his eyes up slowly, Ron was blinking hard and Hermione watched Ron.

"You're … gay?" Ron said expressionless.

"No," Harry blurted. "No, I mean. I'm … I like girls, still."

Ron frowned, and looked between the two of them. "I'm lost."

Hermione scratched her cheek to hide the growing smile, and Harry cursed damn Hogwarts for its lack of exposure.

"I like more than girls," Harry breathed deep to hold the stutter. "Guys, as well. I'll probably use bisexual."

"Bisexual," Ron stared at the floor. "Wait, does that mean you've thought about –" he gestured between the two of them, and Harry frowned. Before understanding with a sharp sour taste.

"What – No!" He blubbered, and took a levelled breath. "It doesn't mean I like everyone. Just that I have a capacity to, I suppose."

Ron nodded slowly at the floor, before shooting up straight. "Wait," he said sharply, and his eyes widened between his friends. "Is this about Malfoy?"

"I –" He knew this would be harder, that he'd have to bend language or perhaps create a new language, to fit the gap. Such singular terms for such infinite messy things. "It's not about anyone else, it's just me," he said clearly, but hesitated. "But, he is a part of it, yes."

"What," Ron snapped his head to him. "You're –" his mouth hung loose and blurry. "Dating."

Harry rubbed his face, elbows on knees, and shook his head.

"Fucking." Ron's voice had a pig squeal tip.

Harry shook his head in his hands more adamantly. "He's … a part of it," his voice muffled.

Ron was silent, and Harry found he didn't want to look up. "What is this really about?" Ron said after a while. "Cause you can do better than Draco fucking Malfoy."

Harry shot up and met his stare, sizzles of heat darting quick through him.

"Ron," Hermione said quickly, and Harry closed his mouth. "I didn't understand, either," she said carefully. "But …" She trailed off, looking between them in thought. "It actually makes a lot of sense."

Harry felt a breath of relief fill him up, watching her; if Hermione could make sense of it, it made sense. Ron's shock filtered this, and searched her dumb-founded.

"I mean," Hermione said pensively. "Think about it." The boys exchanged an uneasy look. "It's Harry and Mal – Draco. They've always been …" she pursed her lips, a quiver of a smile as she thought of the right words. "Captivated. By each other."

Harry straightened slightly, hands fiddling as he watched her closely. Ron looked between them, frowning hard, opening and closing his mouth. "In a way," he got out.

Hermione smiled knowingly. "You know what I mean," she said, and searched Harry. "And now, it's obvious. I've seen how he looks at him."

Harry fiddled with his sleeve. "Am I that obvious?"

Hermione laughed. "I don't mean you," she grew soft and contemplative. "I've never seen him … happy before."

Harry looked away to the floor, an irresistible smile and flutter filing him; Ron didn't seem to know what to do with that, and stood up to sway slightly. "This is mad," he said crookedly.

Hermione shot up from her seat, eyes narrowed at him. "You don't think Harry deserves to be happy, after everything? I couldn't care less if it was a bloody Hippogriff, he is hurting. He hasn't been himself ever since …" she trailed off, but her eyes blazed and both boys shifted away.

"I – that's not what I –" Ron blubbered, and spun aimlessly, before huffing and straggling to the dormitories. Harry watched, blinking blank, before Hermione swept him in a tight hug.

"Hermione –"

Hermione held him tightly, arms locked and hands stroking his shoulder blades softly. "I meant what I said," she said clearly.

"What, a Hippogriff?"

She shot him a soft smile, half-exasperated, and let him go to follow Ron.

X

They uncurled like silk ribbons into nothing, spread like silk on the floor. Draco had pulled a cloak of sheets round him, padding over floor aimlessly in the night like a pale silhouette, sucking something aimless in his hands. Harry slipped, at some point, from the couch so they both lay unravelling, on miscellaneous mess of pine and books and sheets in a strewn out clutter of texture and night air.

"Why 'Lou'?"

Draco lay flat on his stomach with loose limbs twisted in sheets. He played with loose strands of Harry's hair, dancing in the breeze in little quivers. The cat curled around in the kitchen with pats of paws, eyes bright.

"He's loopy," he said lazily, a smile in his voice.

"What," Harry paused, staring at the ceiling. And laughed bright and loud; fingers tugged his hair.

Draco shook slightly in laughter and stretched, pulling out his body tall and Harry drew light fingers over the back of his pale neck, curling through hair. "So warm," Draco mumbled.

"Mmm?" Harry lay his hand flat against skin; fingers dug into bumps and hollows and needled, so Draco arched up to expose more neck.

"Your hands," Draco said. "They are always hot."

Harry mumbled in response, drawing light nails into his hair and watching him sigh and close his eyes.

"I've never known someone's body without just sleeping with them," Draco said. Harry watched him closely, his sleepy face and voice.

Draco opened his eyes to trace over Harry, tracing his whole length and holding on his little details, darting around. "Like …" he trailed off lightly. "Art."

Harry stared close. Draco's eyes met his; they were grey open skies. "You're figuring it out, aren't you?" Harry whispered.

Draco frowned lightly, holding his gaze intently. His eyes were flickers of movement, uncurling and swirling out to Harry – before they were white paper. Utterly blank. His face was even and still; his mouth moved slightly as if playing with words, before resigned to silence.

Harry pressed his lips together to stop the mass in him come out in a gush; instead, he watched Draco not reply, not needing to reply. Draco moved suddenly, to break away – he shifted up to stand, to sway loose, and hold himself stiff. Before drifting off.

Harry let him. He found, once he rolled up from the floor, that the bedroom door was closed shut, and he felt he didn't want to breach. He let Draco's mind close.

He left after a few meaningless hours in the night air, smoking himself to nothing. At the first paint strokes of dawn; he had said, planted, all that was needed, and climbed through his school day in crowds.

Harry knew, without needing to know. He was overtaken. In Draco's lazy drawl, thick with sleep, in a fuzz and stretch of morning with peered eyes against light and bright smiles without the tire of day; in his slack face and sighs, smudged into sheets in the night shadows with curious lights in his eyes and muffled low laughs. That Draco liked to be held more than he hold; that nightmares turned him to still stone and vacant early morning stares. That his electricity never stopped, grew sluggish when drunk or strung out, but quaked in quivers held in Harry's hand or pressed into him. That his lips moved in sleep; if you sucked on his skin blood bloomed hot and red through the transparent pale white. That if Harry shifted his feet would search; that he'd only still when their ankles were curled. That in daytime sleep he made soft noises and his fingers curled into themselves and clothes. That he did awful Draco things, like lick brown sugar from fruit and peel skin with knifes and thumbs and play with smoke in his throat and over his tongue and taste like coffee and cold air in Harry's mouth.

Harry was done, in it. Knocked out. But he liked it, dissolving into something like madness, something Malfoy had always brought. Like slipping; he liked not thinking, he liked disappearing.

It was excess. The whole thing was excess – that he was so near his obsession, that it curled around him and offered up. But he was also done, with it. As it became this escape, this role-play, like playing house or estranged exiles, locked away in hideaways. With double lives and double meanings. Draco talked like he was talking about something else; it was like trying to decode smoke and vapour, there were no figments to grasp, nothing to align; there was no pattern to the madness.

Harry was in a split knife mode.

X

As soon as Harry Apparated, something was wrong.

He stood still at the end of the hallway, and felt like a trespasser. To the unfamiliar sounds and scent; flickers and burn. When he walked in, Draco didn't turn around and his arms hung round him, twitching through the air. He paced loosely; the place was unlit and had tipped over in scatter, pushed up on the walls with widened empty gaps over the floor.

"What –" Harry peered around, still. "What's that on the balcony?"

Draco glanced at him; he caught a twitched tug of a smile. "I am cleansing," he said.

Harry stared at him, blinked. He moved over the floor and mess to the balcony, to the hot flickers against the dark – where bright flame was consuming paper in a blackened glass bowl on the ground. No, not paper – Muggle money, pastel and thin licked by flames so it curled over itself and disintegrated. The silver snake ring lay unscathed in the melting mess.

Harry stared frozen, and spun around slowly. "What the fuck is going on."

Draco was turned away, fumbling with a lighter and babbled a lilted stream of words.

"Wha –" Harry shook his head slowly.

"It's Italian. Dolce far niente," he repeated.

"You speak Italian?" Harry walked closer, peering at him, but Draco was watching the roof.

"Does it matter?" Draco swayed slightly, and Harry cast around the room instantly. "How sweet it is to do nothing, it means."

He targeting in on loose bottles sprawled, dripping on the floor, white liquor uncapped on his table. "Draco …" he started slowly. "I think you're unwell, or –"

Draco laughed sharply over him. "You're adorable," he said, exhaling clouds. "I'm not having a damn crisis."

Harry hesitated. "You didn't come to Hogwarts today."

"Yes," Draco said airily, and swung over to wrap long fingers around the bottle, bringing to eye level to peer at. "That's all a farce."

Harry frowned at him, and moved over but Draco spun to move away. "See, I am nothing," Draco continued in an odd distant voice. "So I decided to be nothing. That starts by owning nothing."

"Owning nothing …?" Harry glanced over at the balcony.

"How sweet it is. What else is there, Potter?" Draco sipped with grace, fingers twitching over the glass. "I am empty."

"Draco," Harry moved forward swiftly and grabbed his arm, turned him to face him. "Here, let's just go to bed, or –"

Draco smiled liquidly. "You're right, there's always sex, pleasure," his eyes spun, and finally met Harry's. He looked gone. "But that fades."

He knocked out of Harry's grip and moved over to the balcony in indecisive movements, swift and held back. "See," he said, holding up a flaming thin sheet of money. "I could just burn away, and no one would know."

Harry just stared at him; shivers ran down his back.

Draco smiled slyly at him and dropped the money, eyes wild. "I have nothing. I have no name," he moved forward, hands fidgeting over themselves.

He flicked the cigarette away and laughed, but stumbled. Harry shot forward and clutched his upper arms. Draco caught his eye and traced his face sloppily, before his lips twitched down.

He looked away at nothing. "I have no family," he said, and snatched out of Harry's grip; a chill ran through Harry.

Draco swung out his arms wide. "I belong to no one and nothing." He grabbed his sleeve in a sharp move, and tugged it up to expose the underside of his left forearm. "Have you noticed?" He showed Harry the blank space of white skin, and Harry just stared. "No Mark. I was a disappointment," he smiled sardonically.

"Draco –" Harry said, but it didn't come out. Draco paced slowly around; Harry was cold.

"I could just disappear," Draco drew fingers up and down his jaw. "No one would know."

Something sank icy in Harry's blood, stung the back of his neck. He moved forward and clutched Draco's wrist, stopped it from twitching around. "That's not true," Harry brought Draco's hand over his neck, to settle his quivering fingers against the warmth. He traced it to his mouth and kissed his palm gently.

Draco's loose eyes met his, and watched him cautiously with rapid grey swirls. Harry felt his eyes burn with hot trickles, and bitter tears sprung at their corners. "You're worth something," he said quietly, but his throat stuck heavy. "Why can't you see that?"

Draco's face twitched, but Harry held his hand tight at his chest and fixed his gaze. "I'm here," Harry said clearly, and didn't blink away the burn. "I know you."

Draco's mouth squirmed and he pulled away slightly. "You don't want –"

"Shut up," Harry clutched him, gripped his elbow with his other hand. "Just shut up. Stop speaking for me."

Draco's gaze flickered, and Harry didn't feel the tear on his face until Draco's gaze captured it. "You idiot," Harry said hard and quiet. "Why do you think I'm here?"

Draco's eyes flicked away and back at him, and swallowed hard. "I don't –" he hesitated, and tried to jerk away.

Harry moved to clutch his jaw between his hands, so he could angle him still, and stared hard at him. "I want you, not to satisfy some twisted complex I have, not because I'm delusional, because I do."

Draco's jaw twitched under him, his eyes swarmed as he watched Harry, silent.

"I can't explain it," Harry said quietly, staring earnestly. "It's just there – it's become me."

Draco's brow furrowed over sharp eyes, searching him intently. Before he stepped back, out of reach and moved loose, turned away. When Harry caught his expression, it had buckled, into a twisted smile.

"What," he said. "Do you love me, Potter?" He sounded empty, with snark.

Harry watched him move around slowly with sliding feet, a hollow ache beginning to climb through him, holding him to silence.

Draco smiled vacantly at the walls. "Love," he repeated. "Love is just the afterglow of sex." He flicked out another cigarette, fumbled with it. "The haze of orgasm," he said, and then his smile flickered away as he paced. "Or a formality, a written contract, something advantageous."

Harry was still; he felt a numb pain fill him, bowl in him and through his limbs.

"Monogamy, marriage," Draco continued in his dead voice, trailing smoke. "It feeds off human frailty. Entraps people in a socially accepted prison. Born from our undying fear of being alone."

Harry's throat unstuck, to hollow air. "I can't do this."

"Hmm?" Draco didn't look at him, head tilted up.

Harry rubbed his face slowly and looked at the floor. "I'm done," he expected to sound tearful, ripped through. But he sounded empty.

Draco caught his eye when he looked up, and raised his eyebrows hazily.

Harry stared at him. "You were always a coward," he threw it in the space between them; it fell out numb.

A flicker of life lit in Draco's eyes. "You're just desperate," he said, a depth to his tone. "You need things to mean something, when they just don't."

Harry watched him and nodded slowly, before looking at the floor. He smiled empty and sad. "You're scared of caring, of – meaning " he said. "Of loss."

He blinked slowly, before spinning on his heel. "I'm not coming back," he said, but his voice caught, before he Apparated.


	30. Cracks

guitar finger knubs, Various Storms and Saints - Florence, ash ruined my keyboard

* * *

PART THREE

The Moors

* * *

It was the first thing in three days that felt real; because it was, a memory. A shutter amongst film.

Harry leaned at the dormitory window, with the sleepy sounds of people behind him, perched loose and watching a night sky too far from him, too awake. He wasn't really sure what his sleep pattern was. He slid into it, a tendril of smoke in his mind.

It cut through the slow night.

"Pass the lighter," Draco had murmured round a white tip, long and lean against the kitchen bench.

Harry peered into the blackened pot over slow blue flame, stirred the mush inside. It had been brewing for an incalculable time, overnight perhaps. He couldn't remember – he scrutinized the steaming red brown mush, beans and various things, lulled by the slow bubbling as if they could answer, and waved an arm back indistinctly.

It was quiet, instead of the familiar slow crackle burning thin paper. After a long moment, Draco spoke. "I forget."

Harry glanced over his shoulder once. "What?"

"Sometimes I forget too," Harry heard, followed by crackling paper. He looked over his shoulder, catching Draco's eye. The coy morning cast shadows in his angular face.

Draco looked between him and the orange ember tip of his cigarette, brows raised. When Harry stared blankly, Draco exhaled smoke pointedly and flicked his gaze down, to Harry's empty wand hand.

Oh, he had hardly realised.

"Who you are," Draco said. He watched him narrowly, smoking lazy.

Harry turned back, stirring the wooden spoon, thrown into nostalgia. "Was," he countered.

"Are," Draco repeated.

Harry stirred vaguely, and thought. He glanced back at Draco. "Can be."

Draco studied him with a light frown, but the side of his mouth twitched up, as if in compromise.

They had sat on the balcony, watching the street as Draco tempted him with unlit cigarettes, eventually flicking them at his face to try and provoke wandless magic, but Harry dutifully ate and hid his smile. He watched the windows from the opposing building, aligned slots in neat rows. And they could be, on their balcony, any flicker of life in those rooms, any colour of the various lights. Anyone.

At the dormitory window, Harry sat swallowed up by a black crawl of night with sleepless eyes.

Before dawn broke, he found himself at the Gryffindor table, his fingers recording the wooden grains of many burns and scratches over eons of time. He didn't know in the days that had passed, if he was running from something, or toward something. _People don't always run away to places_. Though he had stormed out, active, he was adrift.

The only thing that changed was the slow sun and eventually Ron both invading his space.

Ron sat opposite him, and looked almost nervous, spread on his elbows. He cleared his throat, and peered around the almost empty Hall before catching Harry's eye hesitantly. "Look," he said quietly. "This isn't about you being … bisexual."

Harry glanced away, as something squirmed in him. He willed himself to face Ron.

"I talked to Hermione about it," said Ron. "But –" he stopped, brows furrowed determinedly. "I won't ever like him."

Harry looked behind Ron's shoulder vaguely and chewed his lip. Before nodding slowly and looked down to watch his thumb follow a carved track. "I understand," he said.

Ron paused. "You do?"

A loose memory tugged to his forefront, of Draco's frown, confused, as he caught Hermione's polite smile. Harry nodded slowly again. "You don't need to forgive him."

Ron fiddled with food. "How can you?"

Harry felt a humourless smile creep up. "I'm just tired of hating."

"What?"

Harry looked away, and Ron watched him cautiously with a frown. "He's done a lot of bad things," Ron said distinctly.

Harry rubbed his jaw, as his mind riffled at Ron's words, through a series of images, memories. The quiver in Draco's eyes, as he lowered his wand at the Astronomy Tower. The hawthorn wand pointing at Harry's chest. The Unforgivable at his lips. A series, a collective all threaded together, but could splay under his thumbs, into little sparse threads of fabric. Like invisible strings, entwining it all in a web. A web that Draco was lost to.

Who pulled those strings, at his limbs? Who tugged them up, to point offensive at Harry, or loosened them, to lower his wand? Harry could no longer see Draco from afar, all snide and sneer, could no longer imagine his limbs moving briskly, his steps deliberate and smug. In control.

 _I know you_ , Harry had said. But he felt as if he knew him less than ever.

 _I am nothing._

Maybe it was alright. Draco could be his glacial gaze, gone. And icy brittles, with a tremble of wings. He could be the ripped skin on Harry's lips one day, a stain on his neck the next. The pearly periwinkle veins over his soft eyelids, as he curled into Harry's cheek, asleep. His smile eyes, a kiss away from Harry's.

Why did he need to be one thing, when he could be anything?

Ron was watching him, food forgotten. Harry spread flat hands on the table. "Yeah," he said slowly. "I know that." He left it in his head, that Draco had never claimed to be good. He claimed to be right.

Now he just claimed to be alive and to taste delicious coffee.

Harry was ready to stand up, to leave, something bowling up in him like a heavy swarm, what had been kept locked away deep inside him since he left the flat. Flexing his hands, a tidal wave moving his feet to action –

Before feet bounded toward him, in a sharp swell of fury, and Pansy was yelling. "Potter." It echoed in the Hall.

Harry caught her direct gaze and unclenched his fists, and huddled back when she stood over him. Pansy looked down at him over dark neat brows, with sharp eyes. Sharpened by her short black hair, in an unscathed horizontal cut. And Harry got a wild idea Draco could actually be shaken by someone.

Pansy's gaze swept over the Gryffindor, at the curious stares and locked with Harry, chin raised and unshaken. "Where is he."

Harry blinked. "What?"

"Don't be fucking stupid," spat Pansy. "Where's Draco?"

Ron looked between them, jaw slack, before Hermione swept in from behind Pansy, breaking Harry's blank stare. Hermione settled in beside Harry and reached for a teapot, looking positively unsurprised by the scene, to Harry's annoyance.

Pansy clucked her tongue, raised a brow at Harry.

"I don't know," said Harry, shifting awkwardly.

Pansy narrowed her eyes. "I'm not an idiot, Potter," she said, and swept over the seat, folding her stockinged legs daintily. She drew a long talon over Harry's hair, and he jerked back in protest; she tucked his hair behind his ear. "I know more than you'd think," she spoke quietly and smiled acidic at him.

Harry watched her, doubtful, but felt a little sick. She was watching him expectantly, and he sighed. "Alright," he surrendered, and ducked in close, so the other three mimicked him. "He's probably just drowning in his flat."

"But you're here," Pansy said in quiet harsh huffs. "He's never disappeared without you."

Harry shuttered himself against her words.

"I'm going to the Manor tonight," said Pansy, looking between them. "But I don't know how to sneak past McGonagall –"

"We've been leaving Hogwarts all year," interrupted Harry, and then pressed his lips together. He was met with silence, and found he didn't want to look up. "And he wouldn't have gone to the Manor," he said quietly.

He met Pansy's piercing gaze, looking between his eyes. "I fucking knew it," she whispered. Her microscopic vision, layers of bright hazel, forced Harry to stretch back and look away.

Harry rubbed the back of his neck awkwardly, and locked with Ginny's hard gaze from far down the table. He was struck by the absurdity – Pansy bloody Parkinson and her lioness claws and met Ron's reddening face with some untamed emotion while Hermione sipped tea delicately – he shook his head sharply as if to clear it all.

"He's going to get kicked out, for fuck's sake," said Pansy, combing fingers through her immaculate inky hair, perched far too comfortable in her seat. "No thanks to you, Potter."

Harry shook his head questioningly at her. "I'm coming," Hermione said suddenly. Harry turned to frown at her, and she smiled soft at him. "You're going after him, right?"

"Suppose I get Ginger, then?" Pansy looked over Harry at her.

Hermione nodded fervently. "Splitting up will cover more ground."

"Wha –" Harry spun between them, mouth hung, as Pansy shot Hermione a sly grin. Spun by the sudden springing idea that, under different circumstances, the two would get along swimmingly.

Hermione hesitated, and met Ron's tentative gaze. He looked almost pleading, but eventually met Harry's eyes, face still flushed.

There was a heaviness, in the air and in Ron's eyes, as Harry watched him teeter. But Ron held his ground. "Sorry, mate," he said quietly, and looked down.

Harry watched him long after he looked away, while Pansy prattled on conspiratorially and Hermione jumped in with ideas, but admitted defeat.

He avoided Pansy's snappy step all day, darting round corners and immersed in thick crowds, at any sight of a short slick black head. But Hermione caught him on his way out of the common room, at nightfall. "We're coming, Harry," she promised.

But where Harry was going, no one could follow, he felt. Under rolling gunmetal clouds, he slipped over the night grounds alone, and Apparated.

He sort of felt he knew what he'd find, but walking down the hallway was struck anyway, at the dead scene. He stood still in the flat, looking round at the collateral mess. He knew it was untouched, alone; bottles and everything strewn out like vulgar curses, matte together and pulled apart, shoved up on walls. Maybe he was the smoke, burnt out to dust, in a way. The lone tendril moving around the room.

Draco wasn't here, hadn't been here, he felt. Harry thought of his vacant stare, out of his own mind. Where would he escape to? Should Harry care?

Draco had finally cracked, harsh bolts cracking his glass. That wasted boy, with so much and so full, could break to urgency, quake to this, this mad room. Harry moved around slowly, treading carefully over the floor. He felt he didn't want to disrupt, touch anything, sit anywhere.

But Harry had been through too much, as well, seen too much – and was right. He was tired of hating.

He took out his wand, and thought about what he would want to hear, curled privately in his ear. In his worst moments – walking to his death, looking down at crumbling bodies – and thought inexplicably of laughter that wasn't his, airy at the sky and nestled into his skin, before muttering the words.

The silver stag looked at him once, a breath of bodiless light against the flat, before cantering out to the sky. Hooked with a message, that he prayed Draco was alone to hear.

 _You're not alone._

He almost missed it, on his way out, but jerked his head back at the small imprint left in his mind as he had turned away. Lined against the fog blanketing the window, drawn letters in the mist, so words looked back at him. _Petty Potter_. The 'P's too big, the script too neat for the absurdity.

He felt a smile tug up and a short huff of laughter burst out. The words looked stale, doubled over in layers of renewed fog – he wondered how long it had been there, without his notice.

Hermione and Pansy were true to their word, and caught him the next morning from either ends of a hallway, as if coordinated. They barricaded, standing either side of him and let him lead but brought all the force and energy like prattling cats.

They were expectant, not rattled when Harry Apparated them to the pastel town, walked determinedly over the cobble-stones. And walked into the dark barrel escape of a café, to slip into another time. Hermione and Pansy exchanged a look, looking around the place at the aged clutter framed by dark weathered wood and candle glow, but Harry bounded forward without explanation.

Ava caught his eye from behind a silver machine and split into a wide smile. "Harry!"

He smiled back, and she threw a rag over her shoulder, went round the bar to meet him. "Hey, Ava," he said, as she clasped his shoulder briefly, moving past him to wipe down tables. "I was wondering, actually –"

"Is that Harry?!" Lee sprung up from a shadowed couch, cornered by bookshelves and stomped on over in her boots, laughing. "Hold on," she said, swept round the bar and clapped her hands together. "I know just what to get you."

Ava shook her head in exasperation, grinning at Harry. "Here, sit," she walked him to a table, and Harry glanced back.

"Oh, this is Hermione," he said, and Hermione finally moved forward with an appreciative smile. "And Pansy," he added as an afterthought, while Pansy pursed her lips.

"Nice to meet you," Ava smiled, as Hermione loitered, sat next to Harry neatly and smiled back. Pansy plonked down, her sharp eyes scrutinized the place, arms folded tight and jiggled her foot. She caught Harry's eye, noticing his stare and her eyebrows shot up challengingly. Hermione coughed pointedly, nervously scraping hardened wax on the table.

"Oh, right," Harry said, turning back to Ava. "I was – we were – hoping that –"

Lee darted in and plonked a drink in front of him ceremoniously, then stood back in awe. "There!" She beamed at the coffee appreciatively.

"Thanks," said Harry distractedly, but looked back at the coffee. He frowned. "What's that on top?"

They all turned to him; fine dust sunk in the textured milk, light beige and clotted burnt brown.

"Cinnamon," Lee smiled joyful, rocking on her feet. "That's how you take it, yeah?"

He frowned and blinked at it – it looked back. "I've never …" but once he brought it to his lips, he realised he had. He met Lee's expectant smile, and saw Ava's smile fade behind Lee.

"Maybe he mixed it in," Ava said quietly, but Lee laughed blissfully unaware.

She trotted over to the bar, arms and hair swinging. "Latte in the morning, cinnamon makes him smile," she said grandly, as if reciting. She busied with mugs, and Harry's frown started to melt. "Black all day, a pinch of chocolate at night makes him sleep better –"

"Lee," Ava shot out, and Harry met her keen eye. She was watching his expression, alert and almost concerned. Lee looked around at their faces, and went still.

Harry wanted to cry.

After a long tense moment, Pansy's hand came down on the table. "Why does this matter?" she snapped. They ignored her.

"You …" Lee looked between them. "Didn't know?"

He had a feeling she wasn't just touching on the condiments. Amid the slow sink in him, he felt a hand on his arm, and turned to Hermione's full eyes.

"For goodness sake," Pansy shot in. "Where's Draco?"

Ava exchanged a look with Lee, before moving to rest on a perched hand on Harry's old chair. "He came in, once," she said quietly. "He looked a little …" She hesitated.

"You could check with Luca," said Lee, picking at her lip nervously. "Here," she grew eager, able to help, and grabbed ripped paper and a pen. "His address, to his flat."

He almost didn't want to ask. "Why?" he found his voice strange.

"He goes there sometimes, when he's like this," Ava's hand came down on his shoulder hesitantly. Her steel rings felt so solid and heavy against his drifting body.

He took the scrap of paper, looked down at the ink blots.

Harry sat on the floor of Draco's flat that night, stripping it down and moving things to just replace them. He thought vaguely he was cleaning, for a while, until it became obvious he was searching. Fumbling through and pulling apart, scrutinizing. He could imagine Draco lying liquidly on the couch, criticising him as Harry made himself part of the landscape, shifting it around with him.

Hermione had offered to come to Luca's, holding his hand briefly at the Hogwarts gates as they tread back, a gleam shook her eyes. Pansy insisted to be notified at the slightest scurry, but Harry said he wanted to go the next day alone.

He woke to a touch, on his hip and shifted into it, welcomed. Before something sprang in his sleepy mind; he spun around. But it was Lou, meowing gravelly and rubbing against him. Harry blinked blurrily at him; his luminous eyes blinked back. He eventually gave in, curling around the soft thing as it purred into him, and was swept, drifted into another shutter memory.

"I measure out my life with coffee spoons," Draco had murmured, sitting on the floor and frowning at the table. Mugs sat aligned in a neat horizontal row on it, four or five deliberately placed, and Harry watched Draco's fixed expression from the couch, in a gap between mugs.

"Are you quoting again?" Harry asked amid a yawn, lying loose.

Draco's lips twitched, eyes flicked over to meet his. "It's highly relevant."

Harry shook his head slowly, but smiled slightly. Draco seemed to hobble through everything, unmeasured. Vague or excessive. But he watched the mug alignment, Draco's keen scrutiny. It seemed almost methodical. He thought of Lee's words at the café, the ritual condiments in his coffee.

Lying between sheets before sleep swallowed him, Harry was left with the feeling that Draco was much more aware than he seemed.

* * *

"Freedom is nothing but a chance to be better" - Camus

the quote is TS Eliot


	31. Sea

moss and moors, air, salt  
"your flesh prison, your glass soul; I am a universe, here to stain you bold" - Arabella

* * *

Harry raised a fist to knock, cursing in his head. But rapped knuckles on the rickety door, and stepped back to sway on his heels. He squeezed his eyes shut.

He heard the door open with a click and creak, and Luca's lazy gaze swept him before a wide smile broke out. "Harry, right?" he said around a toothbrush.

Harry smiled tentatively, as Luca's hand moved to wipe white foam.

"Shit, sorry," said Luca in his casual drawl, opening the door wide and spinning to half-run in loud stomps down the hall. "Come in, I'll be a sec."

Harry hesitated, and followed at a slower pace, closing the door behind him. It was a rickety, dim place, with branched cracks in the plaster walls and dusty cork floors. He looked round; it seemed entirely comprised of a shady room off the hall, with filtered natural light and squishy couches, barred windows and small kitchen. He heard plonking feet down a creaking staircase.

"Smoke?" Luca came round him and motioned for Harry to sit, and sat adjacent, knees spread.

"No, thanks," Harry said, shifting around. Luca nodded placidly and looked away vaguely through the window, settling in. Harry watched his sloppy grin, and felt his mouth tug up in humour. Luca looked content to just sit there, elbow perched loose behind him and a cigarette sticking from the corner of his mouth. And Harry realised in a white flash why Draco would come here – Luca didn't ask questions.

"So, um," Harry sat up, breaking the silence. "Sorry to intrude –"

Luca grinned at him, eyes crinkling. "Nah, it's fine. Open house."

Harry smiled back, weaving fingers together. "I'm looking for Draco, actually."

Luca swept a big hand through his curls, nonchalant. "He was here, couple of days ago," he looked away smiling. "He used to talk about you," he said after a moment.

"So I've heard," Harry said quietly, rubbing his neck.

Luca exhaled smoke and grinned, and moved to nook the cigarette behind his ear. He stood up and clapped his hands together. "Here, I'll grab you something," he moved to the kitchen. "Fruit?"

Harry felt an irresistible smile. "I'm okay, thank you."

He heard a toothy crunch behind him. "He didn't really talk, when he was here," Luca said around food. "I think he wanted to be alone."

But he came to you, Harry thought. "Without being alone?" Harry asked.

Luca laughed. "Exactly. That's Draco."

He felt a stir of unease in his stomach, and watched his hands. "Did he … mention anything? Where he would be, or …?"

Luca moved round to sit spread, lying back and considered him behind a cigarette. His eyes were narrowed, loose but in thought. After a while, he sat up and put out his cigarette in a shabby glass. "We were together, over the summer," he said quietly, watching his cigarette. "But we weren't."

Harry looked away, chewing his lip, but turned back to watch him tentatively.

Luca smiled loose, a single crease in his cheek. "I never felt I knew him," he squashed the cigarette, curls falling over his face. "Even when I did."

But he couldn't have, Harry thought. How much could Draco show, how much was he, after everything that had happened. He remembered Draco's words, the first morning on the balcony. _He didn't know who I was_. Harry wondered what little fragments, tiles of him, Draco would let lay here, in this flat.

When he looked back, eyes focusing, Luca was watching him. "Do you want a drink?" Luca said, quiet, gaze moving around his face.

Harry looked down. "That's okay."

Luca shrugged. "Alright," he stood up, stretching. "Well, he didn't mention anything. Feel free to scamper about." He shot Harry a grin, and moved to the hall. "I'll be back," he called back. Harry heard feet on the staircase again.

Harry stood up slowly, looking around. He reached over, and picked up the glass. He held it eye level, and wondered which cigarettes were Draco's. His gaze locked with glasses on the sink, a beige rim of crema lined the bottom. Black coffee.

He found more, little remnants, moving around the room. Traces of him. He fingered a half-smoked cigarette on the ground, as if tossed carelessly. Like shed snake skin, he tracked it all. Mugs and glasses, cup rings on surfaces, and on the kitchen bench – a notepad. Folded back, a page ripped out, sitting under a corded wall phone next to a pencil on an otherwise empty bench. He picked it up, and frowned at it. Another shed of skin – dented lines in the paper in a neat script. He thought, then picked up the pencil and shaded over it lightly, colouring grey, so white indented words looked back at him. Loose meaning sprung at him – Inn, numbers, address – and ripped out the page. He folded it neatly.

Luca swung back in, and Harry spun.

"Did Draco borrow money?" Harry said, remembered the flame licked scraps on the balcony.

Luca frowned. "Now that you mention it," he said, and still couldn't look serious, merely in vague thought. Harry felt a strange urge to smile at him, amid his fast thinking. "Ava gave him money when he saw her. She was short of change when we went out last night."

Harry's mind flickered. "Did he use the phone?"

Luca shrugged. "Not sure," he said.

Harry sprung to movement. "Okay," he said, and moved to the hall. He paused halfway down, spun to meet Luca's slow smile, following him. "Sorry. Thanks for your help."

Luca's smile grew, and walked down to meet him, opening the door. "Anytime," he laughed.

Harry shot him a smile and started to walk – but paused, as some loose thread floated up, unwelcomed, in his mind. He reached out, and could twist a notch of Luca's shirt, gently at his stomach, in their proximity. Luca's brows creased, eyes softening as he watched him.

Harry searched him. "Did you sleep with him?" he murmured, quietly.

Luca's frown faded, and he shook his head slowly. He looked almost sympathetic. "No, Harry," he said softly. Harry felt a coil of shame, and looked down, but felt a warm hand wrap around his wrist.

"It's okay," Luca said, and Harry watched a soft smile grow. He wondered if he could find another trace of Draco there, in a hidden corner of his lips.

His eyes skid up, realising where he was staring, and met soft blue. He felt movement, rough fingers slide up his wrist slightly, and Harry's gaze flickered back.

He wondered if he could taste Draco there.

He could see it unfolding, as if it already had. He'd lean, the gentle touch on him would pull him, to collide. And taste Draco, ingrained in this boy like dust and freckles over his skin, inklings of him. Like props, they could play the part. To recreate, some phantom between them, some imprint left in their beds.

Harry looked away. "Thanks, again," he said, quiet, and pulled his hand back. He felt the hand drop off him.

"That's alright," Luca whispered, opening the door wider. Harry didn't look up, and walked out.

He walked unnecessarily, far down the symmetrical stretch of street. A vertical route with rhythmic beat steps, steps with slow feet, watching his feet. Mimicking a pale boy and trailing the sky, head tilted back. To stretch up lazy arms, to flex his hands, and watch himself from the afar. What little remnants became him now, where did Draco begin, in him. How long, since when. It tainted him heavy.

He stopped before he reached the curved top of the street, and took out the slip of paper. Before he could see over the hill, so it was like climbing to the colourless clouds; he thumbed the thin rips, and traced over the invisible words. He wondered if his questions had answers, or if they just fell out, on the empty street and floated to the sky, unheard.

On the edge of the sky, Harry thought about Draco. If he was pushed or stepped forward. Careless or carefree. _Chaotic._ And if it mattered, that what held Harry here, that what kept him moving, Draco couldn't see in the world anymore. Did it matter if Harry had faith, if it was met with grey.

He swept his thumb over the grey shadowing. Feeling uninspired, he concentrated hard on the words. _Is that what you're doing?_ Running away.

He Disapparated.

– was met with breeze and chill, over his skin. He narrowed his eyes against it, peered around at the grey-green landscape. Moors and hills, rolling beds flattened and raised, stretched as far as his eyeline. So they swallowed him up, cast him small. The cold wind was tinged with salt, wild, whistling through the grass, colour sucked up by the overcast overhead. It paled; pale lavender and dead green.

He cast around, and locked with the single upstanding thing; a wooden house. A cabin, his mind supplied, neat and barren on the stretch of country road. He ducked against the chill, and ran the short distance, to duck under the roof and lean heavily. He felt so small, sole, and closed his eyes; but time passed, breathing out steam, and it was quiet. In this wild place. Animalistic and unwatched, so his mind flattened but his skin itched with nerves, kissed by air.

He found the only door, left open slightly and creaked inside. The wind howled inside, quietly, through the patchy logged-up cabin. He was tentative, moved across the lightless dusty room, with cold stone slates and worn carpet. His hand skimmed the kitchen bench absently, met something. Looked down to it; he fumbled with a cigarette, long burnt out – And was temporarily struck, as he was overtaken by a sharp swell inside him. Drawing in quick breaths, he let it all fade and seep out and dissolved onto the bench, silently laughing and on elbows, clinging to the damn cigarette. Mad, he thought. Yes.

He felt strangely at ease, for the next few hours of daylight, watching the timeless moors outside whip and howl. Waiting, he felt, but at ease. There was no electricity, some insignificant candles around and a woodheater, and busied himself with nothing; he fingered aging spines of books, the residue of scrappy logs, curled toes against the uneven floor.

It felt like a cave, untouched and carved into the landscape. He carved himself out, let the hollow room and air fill him up.

And crawled up small, in the single bedroom, drawing up scratchy blankets and curled in with all doors let open.

He woke to quivers, and thought his heart stopped. In a short moment – but it soared. Left him, and he curled himself tighter, clutching the bed as his body blew up in a lightness, full, and then stretched out loose. Hands came round him, crawled up from his hips under his shirt, harsh and ice cold, in broken quivers and shakes. He drew in the mass, in the dark tugged it all up to him, so Draco curled into him, burying into his chest. He heard murmurs trapped up in shaking, caught tight and indecipherable; he pressed them together, looping his leg around a thigh and collected him, in tight arms.

Draco was wet, shivering, hair damp against Harry's face, still murmuring against his chest. Harry nodded as if he understood, trying to rub him warm, and tugged the blanket up round him. Draco was rubbing hands in a fixed rhythm over his flanks, voice hoarse, and smelt like smoke and rain.

"I'm sorry," Harry caught, trapped in his shirt. "I'm – sorry."

Harry drew him in tighter, rubbing circles down his back. I know I know – but the words didn't come out. "How can I trust you?" he whispered instead.

Though Draco's centre was warming, hot under the blanket, he was shaking. Harry drew up hands, over his neck, the wet skin, and drew thumbs over his quivering jaw, to angle him up. Draco seemed to resist, pressing in more.

"You can't," Draco whispered.

Harry's grip grew hard as he felt his face crease. Draco's quake became little jolts, and Harry thought he might be laughing with an absurd swoop through him, but Draco drew in a shaky breath.

"Why are you crying?" Harry tightened his hold, to tug him up.

But Draco just shifted into his neck. "I'm not," he said weakly, voice breaking. Harry skimmed over his wet cheek, catching it all.

"Okay," Harry whispered. He shifted down, to press a kiss to his forehead, moving back hair. He lingered there, as if asking permission, before skimming down the line of his nose. Draco angled up, the tip of his nose snagging Harry's lips, and met him halfway. He tasted like cold rain, a tongue drawing in tentatively, messy with his quivering and shaky inhaling. But Harry clasped strong hands over him, fingers moving through his damp hair. His mouth moved harder, sloppy, wanting to peel him open. Draco felt fragile, abuzz and soft; and Harry climbed under his damp shirt, the tips of fingers brushed against ruined skin. Some part of him thralled, blurry and deep; he felt an impulse to crack him open, to have him, here. But Draco was still shaking, his throat catching in kisses.

Harry drew back to kiss the curve of his ear, and Draco resigned into something small, curled. "I'm half-asleep," Harry murmured.

Draco shifted into him. "Let's just pretend we're awake."

X

Sleep never really found them; it crept under the doorway like flat smoke, wrapped around them. Harry drifted lazily, rocking between states of consciousness, eyes opening to different shades of the room, and Draco kept shoving further into him, like another blanket.

At one point, he felt little beats of wings over his skin, and shifted to watch Draco plant soft kisses over his collarbones. Predawn coated the sky with heavy night; pink light promised the dark, bringing slight light into their room. Draco crept slow, face shadowed, moving his shirt aside to kiss his shoulders. Harry drew over his hair sleepily, so Draco met his gaze.

Draco shifted to lay back flat, head resting on his perched arm, and Harry sat up on his elbow to watch him. He seemed uncertain, and grabbed Harry's free hand tentatively. He moved it up to his face, to examine fingers.

"You were right," he murmured, and drew fingers soft over his mouth.

"About what?"

Draco said it behind fingers, "I have fear."

Harry shifted closer, watching his face. "Of caring?"

Draco studied the groves of Harry's fingers with a light frown, as if absorbed. Harry waited.

After a while, Harry drew back his hand and let it draw a light trail down his sternum, before lying flat over his stomach. Draco met his eyes hesitantly, and Harry's fingers moved soft over him. "This isn't scary," he said quietly, left light at the end, as if a question. His hand moved round his middle, arm cast warm over him.

Draco smiled slightly. "That's it though," Harry had to strain to hear.

"Hmm?"

Draco looked away. "It's free."

Harry searched him. "And that's scary?"

A small smile pulled the corner of Draco's mouth, his eyes busy. "Freedom is terrifying."

Harry felt a sad sink drop through him, not born from him. He drew up his hand on impulse, thumb needling the corner of his lips, moving up his cheek.

Draco finally met his eyes. "Because it's everything I've ever wanted," he said, his voice lightening up to nothing. "Even when I didn't know it."

Harry watched him, trying to understand.

"When you get everything you ever wanted," Draco continued vacantly. "Do you really think you would deserve it?"

Harry felt his body respond before his mind, heart quickening. Bliss and pain chased each other in his mind, and he shifted down to think in Draco's warm neck. His fingers flirted with Draco's shirt as he thought. He dragged lips across warm skin slowly, then lingered still. "I think that's up to you," he whispered softly.

Draco laughed without feeling. "That's a foreign concept."

"No," Harry said, drawing back. "You control you."

Draco looked at him, like a puzzle. "No," he said quietly. His lips moved to a slow smile. "Not when I have you."

Harry twitched back slightly. "I control you?"

The smile grew, and Draco tugged him closer, and spoke into his jaw.

"You free me."


	32. Palms

sky high highrise, elevator ding, Return To - #1 Dads, fairy penguins

* * *

"Bed. All day."

The rain pattered the bedroom an old grey blear and chilled the alpine air. Wind howled hollow through the cabin, but they shut the door to it. It was almost warm; instead of rising at daylight, Draco had peeled off their damp clothes without warning, cast in a slump on the stone floor. Down to his undershorts, Harry sprawled both in and out of blankets.

"All day."

He had gone still and watchful when Draco shifted over his jeans, undoing a button and tugging pointedly at the leg. But Draco looked like peonies' petals, papery pale and soft and tired, and merely pulled him back once Harry had chucked them off, to wilt together.

At Draco's dawn words, Harry had pulled back to look at him. At his smile, Harry held him close for a silent hour, as the sun rose.

Now, Draco alternated in daylight; rolling cigarettes or lying loose or curled in.

"Aren't you going to ask how I found you?"

"No."

Harry shifted his head slightly to watch him. "What?"

Draco licked a cigarette close. "You're Potter."

"I'm Potter."

Draco raised his eyebrows, inspecting the cigarette before throwing it careless on the bed. By now, copper tobacco threads littered the bed, like old suede and weathered leather.

It grained against Harry's skin, and made the sheets smell like Draco. Eventually he looked over and caught Harry's expectant gaze; but he merely smiled and shifted into him, hands sliding against his stomach. "Your stag called to me," he said against his chest.

Harry touched his hair and smiled, before he shot up and Draco made a noise of protest. "Oh, fuck," blurted Harry. "I forgot. Pansy."

Draco's head shot up. "Pants?"

Harry frowned, before his throat caught in a sharp bubble. "What?"

"What," Draco repeated instantly. Then arranged himself neatly, lying back. "Pansy, what about her?"

Harry watched him, frown spreading to a wide smile. "Pants."

"Yes," Draco inspected his nails. "I've decided I prefer you without pants."

Harry stared until Draco's lips twitched. How the sharp sultress had an affectionate pet name was about as absurd as Draco giving her one.

"She came with me, looking for you," Harry said, giving up. "I was supposed to tell her if I found anything."

Draco's light eyes flashed, met his. "She went with you?"

Harry nodded. "I thought she was going to eat me. I don't know how you do it."

Draco looked down, his frown spread to a smile, fond and hidden.

"Send her a patronus tonight," Harry said, stretching out full.

Draco moved back; he could feel a smile against skin. "Can not," Draco smudged into him.

"Hmm?"

Draco paused. "I still can't do one."

Harry frowned, thinking. He stirred, so bare skin slid against legs; the pale legs were smooth with bristles, a light thatch of hair against his. A body he knew so well, as he trailed down nooks of spine with his fingertips, but also this elusive thing. Draco's refined air, impenetrable; but wholly open like a quiver of bird wings, unfurling, like cracks between ribs – that Harry could skate across.

He sunk into pale hair, and felt that thing, that newer hunger. To crack him open. "I'll teach you," he murmured.

"Teach me," a blank question.

"I taught half our year, a while back." He'd never really been curious about that, but he wondered about Draco's patronus.

Draco was quiet, and Harry found himself latching on, leaning down. He tongued the rough corner of his lips, little delicious tears, and hummed against them. "I need to stop biting them off," he mumbled, biting them.

Lips quirked. "What is it with you and my lips, Potter?"

Harry laughed and kissed him plush.

X

They didn't All day.

They pondered and tripped through marshes and waterlogged grass; the cabin didn't stand against it, thaw it – rather it became it, just as it slipped over them, climbed and latched their legs. Grey and green sapped the moors, the stretches of hills and banks without sun touch; an endless ocean of ripples. Wet bark hung on brambles like crow wings, shedding. Grass was whipped and willowy, in salty air. It licked his skin; tumbling over beds and perks, his feet catching.

"Why here?"

Draco was quiet and insignificant in the landscape. He didn't speak for a while, ahead of Harry.

"Don't you feel anonymous here?"

Harry watched him. Thin and pale and light in it all; sinews in his neck and wrists stretched as he tread over rocks and bogs, an animalistic beat and flicker. He looked fragile, a nymph, with his moth skin. He looked otherworldly.

No, he didn't at all. Other-me-ly. Another bout of light rain began, wet on his neck, tingled his skin awake. But he did – he felt without name, without scar, here. He felt alive.

Draco couldn't seem to hold his gaze too long, in the cave cabin. But also trailed him – he grabbed loose at his clothes, fingers trailed over his wrist, at his hipbones, in his hair. Harry couldn't stop, hardly aware, slipping in kiss after kiss, to feel and taste him. Draco moved in gentle hands and tight notches; Harry made tea and opened up the place, cooked slowly, shedding through things in the cabin. With deliberation, in even steps, meddling carefully. His clothes snagged on nails and chipped, weathered wood; his finger bloodied like papercuts on wood chips, the walls creaked. The alpine air let in residue; dead leaves scraped the stone floor, feathers and heath in the swirl.

Draco bossed him around, absent, in a soft voice, and seemed somewhere else. His universal intensity, that trailed Harry in a slow creep, soft streams.

Harry eventually gave in.

"What are you thinking?"

Draco skid over the stone floor, at his heels.

"I'm thinking …" his fingers licked Harry's hair. He moved to finger wildflowers and thistles, brought from outside, on the bench. They were rough and spindly, dried, colour dispersed. Dead.

"I'm thinking," Draco's hand fell off the sprigs of heather. "How do I begin."

X

A fire crackled, licking over logs; Harry got it started, watching Draco out a window, staring at the sky. It spit embers on old carpet.

Harry got this absurd notion, watching him move in the day. He clung, drank Harry's tea, ate his food. Maybe Draco needed something to fill him up, to vacuum up sawdust at his feet; the cigarettes were mostly untouched, coffee drained slower. Suck up loose scatter, to fill him.

Harry had tried to not let himself think, of Draco's words back at the flat. Of how much sense they made to him. He tried to hide them behind Draco's glacial gaze, his unsteady walk. But they resonated, they kept.

He closed his eyes to it; but they spoke of a lost man. Of an after. They spoke to him. His mind flickered, behind his eyelids. He saw tall bookshelves, a maze of walls. Hidden, encased in shelves and on windowsills, tucked away.

 _I could just burn away …_

Between shelves, between sheets. Tucked in a pale boy.

He saw stiff shoulders, a pale hand, and a sprig of hair mussed up, quivering. An image. It played on repeat in his mind, even when he opened his eyes. And only when he stood away from the woodheater and saw a tall figure at the doorway, back to him and leaning against the frame, did it click.

Draco, at breakfast. A lifetime ago. Another person ago.

 _Do you really think you would deserve it?_

He thought of the myriad movements in Draco's grey. His chameleon demeanour, his chaos. He could be anything. Moving over the floor towards the door, Harry believed it.

"How long do you plan to stay here?"

Draco met his eyes sidelong, both standing in the doorway, watching water bank in soil.

"Indefinite."

His voice was soft, and Harry watched him.

"Indefinite?"

Draco moved to watch the wilderness churn and whistle, but Harry didn't look away. As a gust of wind crept round him, he saw a whisper of a smile.

He moved forward to catch it, and pressed his lips to the corner of Draco's mouth, shifting to catch his bottom lip. A smile tickled his skin, and he caught an air of smoky earth, as a hand came to his jaw and Draco pressed against him.

Draco moved to his cheek. "I'm sorry for leaving," he murmured into skin.

Harry tilted to meet his neck, and nodded. His hands came under Draco's shirt, to thumb at knots of rippled skin, rough to his touch. He felt an ache climb through him. How can we forgive ourselves if we can't forgive each other?

He drew his hands back, and pressed a kiss before moving away. "You deserve it, by the way," he said.

"What?" He heard behind him, airier at the door.

Harry stared into the fire, and felt a flicker of smile. "You deserve it."

The fall of evening cast long blankets of shadow over the moors, painted them deep indigo. It was a storm of movement, a slow brew of wind; the rain-darkened clouds an eyelid over hills. Rain tapped on windows, and the fire was burning out, eating itself. He found jars, and Draco dusted over, to suckle raspberry jam from his fingers and laugh. He wore Harry's tattered warm jumper – apparently always unprepared for weather – that hung on his thin skin like wallpaper. Harry cast two stags, to Pansy and Hermione, and Draco wilted around like leaves, aflutter, moving light, gazeless, murmuring sometimes. And Harry wanted to hold, latch onto. He wanted to draw him in and let him climb into his chest, his quiver to rattle in him; not a stolen moment, not some residue. Some whisper and secret, wrapped up tight and neat and tucked between. Clear as glass. Impervious. To crack.

He felt it in his breath and pulse; he wanted to scratch him open, suck to a surface, bloody him, skinless, clutch at. A constant.

At one point, he watched Draco curl into a corner, small on a couch. He was reading, book pulled from nowhere, drawn in with a tight gaze moving over paper. He chewed on his thumbnail absently, a small line between his brows. Harry fell into a lull, rubbing his jaw unconsciously. Draco was half-cast in shadow, framed small. He wondered about Draco in the Manor, that grand, large as large place. He saw Draco padding across loud empty floors, steps echoing, unheard. He saw him climbing into nooks, behind and between things, obscured. Maybe they'd both grown up in a vacuous place.

He thought about the groves of them. Shelves and sheets. They carved out room for them, in their world.

Harry stood and went over to him, and Draco's gaze flicked up. A smudge browned his temple, flicked up from the bogs; the rest of him was muddied too. Their clothes grassy, a light sheath of moors over them; clothes damp, but Draco was worse. His steps had been more precarious, swinging and testing, head tilted.

His eyes smiled at Harry.

"Come," Harry held out a hand.

Draco looked at it, before threading through. His fingers cold and moving, and Harry clutched to pull him up, letting him trail behind.

"Where are we going?"

Harry thumbed a finger, naked feet moving over cold stone slates. Colder at the bathroom, and inspected the place with a single sweeping look, before moving to the bath. He knelt, and fiddled with taps and plugs, finger skimming the cold porcelain, the dust, palms under the warming stream, and he stood to turn to meet Draco. He ducked in slow, and pressed a paperthin kiss at his chin, moving under his jaw. Draco's lips parted, and he felt fingers move over his wrist, but he extracted his hand.

He caught Draco's raised brow, the curious quiver in his eyes, and felt a smile creep up. He let it smooth out, as his hands hovered at Draco's hips, a finger notching his shirt. He drew it up slowly, and saw a light dance in Draco's gaze, fixed on him. Draco raised his arms in a timed cascade, so it slipped over soft; the damp fabric stuck messy to his elbows, and smacked the floor in a clap. He couldn't stop the tweak in his mouth's corner, as his hands brushed the rough edge of his pants, ghosted over his crotch. He glanced up, and Draco's curious smile faltered.

Draco let him. His eyes abuzz, as Harry sifted out a button, and found the zip; he moved in in time with it, to kiss his pale shoulder. His hands ran around hips, skimming under to loosen them off; he tugged at the pant leg, and caught the curious light in Draco's eyes. He nestled them off, in small struggle, and Draco let the unravel; Harry's hands skirting down his thighs so they hit the floor; his hands came round his lower back and pulled him in. Harry kissed a neck hollow, and Draco breathed big. He felt he had silenced him. A breath gave flutter once; Harry skimmed a smudge of mud on the side of his neck. His hands slid down to Draco's wrists at his side; tight to hold them there. And let go – they roamed Draco's side and stomach, matched his ribs, like fingers against him, and bent to tongue the bead of nipple, the chest moving slow and responsive. He mouthed a collarbone, and bit his shoulder softly, possessively.

He felt Draco watching him, as his hands came down to his hips, tips of fingers slipped under fabric. He moved away to turn off the slow stream of water, and met Draco's gaze, straightening up. Mud slicked hair near his face, clumped; Harry fingered it and smiled.

He slipped him bare, and Draco sprang free. He held his gaze, a light looked back. He felt his smile falter, and Draco looked curious, a smile flickering, hidden in the groves of his lips. Harry moved to bury into neck, light, before moving back slightly.

He supposed he should notice, should feel some significant shift. His naked body. But Draco looked like him, a boy. He looked, and it all stared back at him, before he met Draco's heavy eyes. He felt himself smile back, and moved in to kiss, a pepper trail near his mouth, and looked again.

He felt like he'd cracked into a hidden room.

He could see Draco as a whole, an entire. His hand trailed down to touch a protruding hip bone, and some warm thing climbed into his chest, climbed into Draco's throat. "I just want to see you," he murmured into him.

Like him, but different; in the curve, the colouring, veins. He touched the sprawl of rough hair, curling over his finger. There was something so wild about it, indecorum, unpolished. So confident.

"Do you," Draco said quietly. He stood tall like an animal.

He felt a smile play with him, but looked to the water. "Come on," he touched Draco's wrist, tugged him and looked up. He could see beyond beyond, through a window to layers of darkening timeless moors, and heard Draco climb in, water curl.

Draco hummed, and Harry looked to his curled up legs, to his arms stretch up high; he smiled big at Harry. Harry laughed and knelt down, sat sidelong the bath and rest his head on the cold lip. From the edge, he could tilt and meet Draco's gaze, level; he smiled and rustled light through hair.

Draco's eyes closed; he sighed soft. "Don't stop," he whispered.

Harry carted through soft hair, and Draco's face hid behind knees. He slipped out, to slap his damp clothes on stone, the bedroom floor. He didn't have anything else, of course, so stole a papery grey shirt he knew well and too-long pants, tight at the hips, and yawned on the bed. He lay flat, and thumbed the two wands on the bedside table. The hawthorn hummed at his touch.

Draco pad in, enveloped to his chin in towel and flopped limbless. He curled in Harry's neck, and brrrred into him. "Fix me."

The hair wet his face; Harry laughed and gathered him in tight arms, rubbing his arms through the towel. Draco shifted closer, and Harry felt nostalgia. Empty nostalgia, someone else's, no one's; he had no memories of this. Draco smelt like bath, skin young and warm, and Harry wrapped round him, as if tucking him in for the night.

They ended up in a hug of sorts, Harry around him. "I'm naked," Draco mumbled.

"I'm aware."

Draco stirred, and tilted his head up, forehead at Harry's mouth. "Are you going to do anything about it?" he said, voice lilting.

Harry felt a smile stretch. "You flirt."

Draco shifted and smiled into his chin. "If you don't," he murmured, a tongue darting out once. "You don't have to, you can just watch."

Harry laughed a big blurt, and Draco moved to shoot him a smile, with a wicked edge. "Christ," he said, and drew his arms tighter. "Come here."

Draco laughed long sighs, and moved his head back. He shifted to meet Harry, level.

Harry drew up to towel under his ears, and met his careful gaze. He saw sex in his eyes.

"You're sleepy," he said.

"No I'm not."

Harry moved through his hair, to draw him in; he aimed for neck, but Draco snagged his lip.

"Circular sleep," Draco said into his mouth. But he ducked his head, and settled into him. "Again and again."

Harry laughed, because it was true.

Outside, the moors rolled on and on in his ears, without time or words.

* * *

"In the midst of chaos, I found there was, within me, an invincible calm." - Camus  
I dedicate this to you, my art overtakes and becomes


	33. Elemental

hermit hair, Hide - FKA twigs, pink seaweed and red rock

* * *

Harry moved the pan with a shuck of arm, so quick steam rose in torrents with the sizzles. If he peered, he could see past the window fog to sky; an overbearing grey, heavy on the damp green expanse. He heard Draco laughing at something behind him, quick little barks; Harry watched the open armed sky; it weighed heavy, embracing hills and him.

He tipped food into chipped wooden bowls and set them down on the table. Draco laughed sharper, like a gasp.

Harry smiled indistinctly. "Eat."

"Look."

Harry looked over his shoulder, where Draco was crouched over the woodheater. Harry turned when Draco did; he stood and grinned wide at Harry.

"Look," a light shone bright in the gaps of his fingers, before he crushed the ember with a sharp twitch. His eyes widened young at Harry.

Harry frowned. "Don't."

Draco smiled at fingers, "I'm playing with you, aren't I?" With a gasp he found firelight on skin.

"Stop –" Harry made to move forward, but in a quick movement Draco brushed off the orange glowing rock.

And grinned bright at Harry. "You burned me," he said, electric play in his eyes.

Harry frowned, watching him blotch charcoal over his hands like soap, smearing the black stark against white. But turned back to the food. He heard feet over carpet, and started when a quick finger swept his cheek. He touched it, his fingers coming away dusted black as Draco slid in a seat.

Harry poured wine in a slow, slow plum stripe into long stems, until his eyes unfocused.

"Is that it?" he said as the stream ran thinner, knowing he was participating in mad talk. "I don't bore you?"

He set the bottle down. Draco was silent and still, and after a while took a stem from Harry gently. Harry rolled the bowl in dusty hands, and Draco took a careful swig – before shooting up abruptly, walking over. Harry watched; he stretched like a cat onto him, legs stretching and straddled Harry, his body shaking in little laughs.

"Yes?" Harry reflexively clutched the legs around him, rubbing with circling thumbs, and smiled up at him.

Draco considered him, a glint in the grey. His pressed lips twitched, before sinking down into him. He kissed, closed mouth hard and urgent, and Harry leaned into it – before Draco prised his mouth open and a sudden spill engulfed him. Harry shot back, spluttering the tipped wine on carpet to his left side.

"You bastard!" Harry got out, wiping his mouth. He came up to watch Draco stand, cackle wildly at the roof.

"You eat too much," Draco said, still shaking. "And that is shoddy wine."

Draco ate, with some encouragement and some charcoal paintings on Harry's skin, so Harry eventually came to stand behind him, holding him to his chair. Harry drew fingers through his hair, nestled to shoulders and dug into tight tendons and muscles, rolling under his fingers. Draco's head lolled, loose and spoke quiet. "That's how Mother does it."

Harry went still, fingers froze.

He moved his hands away slowly. Draco was soft, and after a moment rolled his shoulders with a crack and stood. Statue still, and Harry watched him, wondering what war crawled and clicked in his head, dredged up. Before he came to life, walked across the cabin and out the door to the slow sustained storm, soundless. Harry stared at the empty space.

Because Draco had touched, plucked that untouchable string. An unspoken rule. What they built gates around. But now, at Draco's sudden fingers, it vibrated heavy in their space.

Draco's parents, Harry's worst nightmares. The role they both played, things done; how Harry knew things, things he couldn't. That Harry was a little too good at playing house, that Draco was a little too good at being served. Past, past leaking into present, like black, black sludge. Forbidden things, left alone. Buried and fossilized.

They had perfected it, really, Harry thought. The art of war, the Post. Living with ghosts and dirty hands.

Outside, Draco let clouds collect smoke rings.

Harry busied himself bodily; he cleaned away moor stains from clothes, collected dry wood from deep under the damp steep outside, its scaly skin paring off, dry husks in his hands to show pale newborn wood, cracking the skulls of walnuts, to palm naked seeds. Over, in the distance Harry could see cloud break, an overpour over mountains, where rain fell in a grey sheet. He only stopped when he noticed Draco was on pause, unmoving, staring out a window.

Harry approached slowly. He outreached; he moved hands on his waist, framing him, and rested his chin on shoulder. "Let's go home," he murmured.

When he was quiet, Harry tilted to see Draco mouth a rounded sound – Home. And Harry felt it too; it felt a bit sour on his tongue.

Draco smiled vaguely. "Give me a reason."

Harry thought, but things kept chipping away. Floating, untethered, into the open arms of the sky.

"Lou?" he said after a pause.

Draco laughed and moved away. Harry took time to make tea, dabbing slowly. He sipped slow, and looked over.

Draco leaned on the door frame. He looked adrift, framed against a pastel clot of clouds behind him, in the air.

"We could just stay here."

Air crackled, light and ice with rain.

Harry tilted on his feet. "Stay?"

Draco shifted, to lean back. Harry watched his sidelong face; he was pale, with blurry edges. But something was there, running like tea stains. A tinge, a drip, in his lifeless face.

"We could," Draco said to the roof, and closed his eyes. "We're not real, there. We're what they want. What they want to see."

Harry felt still, tied to the ground. He envisioned Draco at the Muggle bar, eyes closed against it all, just like now. _That's what it is, isn't it? Why we're here …_

"No," Harry said quickly.

"We could," Draco said with a smear of smile. "You and me."

 _Is that what you're doing?_

"No," Harry blurted.

"We don't fit there," his voice was a gale; he turned to Harry.

Harry took a tentative step forward. "We can make something."

"Make." Draco tilted his head away, at the grey.

"Yes," Harry said, more determined than he felt.

Draco grew light, arms slack; he was quiet.

Harry felt an abrupt coil in him and wanted to rush, to shake him, but he was also stiff and cold; he fell to silence. Rain swept in, small feet in the empty space.

"We can, make," Draco said quieter. "Here."

Like clearing space in a cupboard, Harry could see it. Dusting out a secret, to crawl in it. Indefinite.

"No," Harry said again, because he could, he really could. It hid behind his eyelids.

Draco looked to him, and Harry saw it hidden there too. He could. "Harry," Draco slurred, almost soundless.

And yet.

Harry realised he was shaking his head, and felt a hurdle topple in his chest – he tilt; in hurried steps, he walked brisk and latched Draco's shirt. He looked to his hands, ringlets of white knuckles and fabric. "I'm not …" he said, not sure what he was saying. "I can't."

Draco clasped his hands to a still, a masculine knot, pads of fingers like bruises in his wrist. "It doesn't work like that," he said sharp and shallow. "We can't fit. We have to choose."

Something rattled, spun, in in-betweens and circular loops in him; he clutched for ground. "I'm – I'm sick of it," Harry said, but he didn't know what. "I don't want to pretend, to lie –" his breath came quick. "I don't want –" he clutched at Draco, as if he'd fade. Double lives and double meanings.

Draco's chest rose deeper, and he drew Harry closer, to hide in his temple, soft skin slide of nose and cheek against him. "I've chosen," he said. "I don't want them. I don't want me – I want this."

Harry blinked hard, disorientated. "I can't leave."

Draco's lips slid on his skin, as if to remind him that he already had.

Gentle breath dusted his cheekbone, a press of lips. "I choose you," Draco whispered.

Harry felt something unwind, a blush and bloom, in him and weaved their fingers in a lock – but stick unpleasantly and he felt his eyes close, because it felt like a plea. A plea to some other, a nameless slot, they could slip into.

… And maybe they could. If he inched a door open in his mind, the fork he could take. Just grow old here, to dig roots here, perish and ageless as the moors. He had money and Draco had nothing. Without scars, with each other.

But in a flash of images he saw Ron and Hermione, he saw Hogwarts and the Burrow, and it was elusive all of the sudden, spinning like the doored room in the Department of Mysteries.

Hands unstuck, unleashed in heavy slow rubs on Harry's arms. Something jagged climbed and clot in Harry's throat, a hot blade; he made a choked noise and made as if to pull free, but tight fingers dug in his skin.

"No – stay," fingers held him captive, and mouth was hard on skin.

Draco's nails dug sharp into Harry's arms. "You drive me insane," he said hot into his temple. "You always have. Fucking insane."

On impulse Harry jolted, shouldered out in a sharp tug; but Draco snatched his shirt and pulled them chest tight. "No – listen," fingers uncurled between them, down to curl at his sides and hold him there. "Listen," too quiet for the unsteady quiver in his voice.

Harry squeezed his eyes close, hands moving faintly on fabric. Draco mouthed under his ear.

"It's always been you."

Harry felt his chest rise and fall unduly, his hands twitch. "What – what are you talking –" a sharp red swell of heat rose in him, robed his voice.

"It's okay," Draco was calm – but his hands quaked and Harry's were at Draco's neck, an indistinct stroke or grab; a fierce tussle rattled in him – fight or flight –

Blood red, something animal, mindless.

Anger hit him – moving palms quick to his shoulders, he shoved him away; but Draco taloned his wrists and pulled, held them together. He felt dissolved, gripless, somewhere in the space between them or in him, in Draco, in Draco's grip.

"It's okay," Draco said. His hand pulled free, to smack flat against Harry's neck; his skin stung and fingers needling hard to hold him, but they stroked as if to say it's okay they're fighting, but Harry wasn't sure of sense, wasn't sure if this was fighting or something else – his feet rocked.

"It's okay."

Harry's head swayed down, breathing a fury and Draco's fingers curled an incessant rhythm in the hair at his neck. He felt a desperate surge build in him, like teetering feet and cliff edges and tilted his head up; his mouth searched blind but Draco's hands came round his jaw, thumbs too tight on his skin.

"It's alright," Draco murmured, and resigned their foreheads together, keeping distance. Harry stared at his mouth.

Draco's hand tapped his cheek, wet with rain and it made a clap, and hung there.

He was breathing hard on his mouth, and moved to meet it – but Draco clutched his hair back; his nails clung cheek, in sharp caresses. "You're alright."

Harry caught him, shoved his hands away messily to catch his mouth in his, to exhale in parted lips. He pressed again, asking for response and again, but Draco held him tight; his forehead angled him away. Harry watched his mouth move as if playing with words.

"Alright – alright, it's –"

In an urgent move, Harry trapped his mouth, silenced; he tasted like sea, salt. His hair, in Harry's fingers wind whipped to softened straw. His lips, rougher and like waves, like unspoken words in the movement against him. A surge, building under his.

He barely realised he was hard, until Draco's hand told him. In the turmoil of him; and he felt a groan escape him like a sigh, before he pulled back with a sharp intake.

Draco shot back his hand, and glanced at it. He watched his hand stretch out, like some foreign thing.

"Oh."

He glanced back, and met Harry's eyes. Harry could feel his telltale sign, on his neck; Draco's hand, quivering. Harry didn't look away.

Draco's eyes were open, and they were undressed. Undone.

Harry crashed into him, mouth and tooth and hands circling him in, urgent, over him; a heavy crash.

And clothes suddenly felt full, false. His hands shuffling through material, the flimsy fabric; he gripped waist hard, bundling it all up in knots. He thought Draco was talking, could be, but he couldn't hear; he was a mess, hot blood and nerve. He drew up shirt, and Draco complied, lifting arms – so Harry handled surrendered skin.

Draco was breathing incoherent, broke Harry's grip from his pants' edge, questioning his button with a finger loop, and bat hands sharply again when they crept back; instead moving in to clot Harry's shirt in his fists. But Harry, caught in the abrupt urgency, wrestled him away; except Draco moved with gentle fury, gentle claws, and got Harry's shirt off. With quick hands, meeting Draco's seeker, with his aggressor, Harry fought; rain on his side like pins, pins he couldn't feel, euthanizing – and when he felt quick huffs on his mouth, fragile little mammal breaths, curdled and lost in throat and tongue – he knew he won.

Draco stared at him. Harry rolled skin in a fist, in a moment, a breath, of suspension. Stillness.

"Fuck." Draco's eyes changed. Tectonic shift. "Okay."

Harry exhaled sharply, could have been a laugh.

"I – Okay." Draco looked between his eyes. "Fuck. Okay."

Harry moved in, in a slow hand grip, in a head sigh, resigning into Draco's cheek. "Are you alright?" he kissed a mouth's corner.

"Yeah." He heard Draco's throat, stuck and swallow. "Yeah, I –"

He felt a hand on his bare shoulder, to perch. A tactile pulse, in the thin skin, the hard heat, in his hand. Like an underside, a belly-up surrender. He moved back to see Draco's face bloody, his lips loose, catch on breaths. If there was one, the last scale flaked from his eyes; they were naked.

"Bed –" Draco's voice caught, raw. "Bedroom."

Harry felt himself clutch, move, in a tangle, sloppy. Snippets of scene, of blinks –

Before Draco was on him, in the darker cave. "Take –" his hands shaky, fingers fumbling over Harry's pants. "Take these off."

He whispered, but the room was airless, sole. Closed tight over them.

Harry wasn't quick enough, and Draco's hands snatched, his voice more growl. "Take off." Draco got them off, hands in utter disorder; Harry answered in a tumble, artless, bringing them down on the bed, fingertips on the bulbs of spine, laying limbs tangled laying sideways together.

Draco kicked off his pants tortuously messy, breath coming sharp; before Harry pressed them together, a tight breath blur of heat.

"Christ, what –" Draco breathed hard; Harry felt the pulse of it on his shoulder. "You –"

Harry exhaled slowly, and carted through hair to bring Draco in, pressing into his neck. His hand ran slow down flank, stirring them closer, and Draco's breath tickled his shoulder like rain clatter. He could hear Draco's heart thud, drum. He felt body tension under his fingers, in pale ribs, in arms and abdominals, tendons tight to the bone. Harry took a measured breath, amid the slow licks in him, teasing. Sweet heat.

Close enough to be close; Harry clutched, pinched at waist flesh, bringing them flush and hot together. "You –" Draco shuddered, "you're –"

Harry pulled back slightly, and caught young eyes. Wild depth. Draco was babbling, somewhat incoherent. Harry moved to smile into neck, a feather kiss.

"Come," he murmured. "Come here." He shifted heavily, hips grating and rolled on top of Draco. He moved in skin slides, hair like sand, a full press of body and blush, and Draco gasped. "I'm here," Harry found a hand, a palm quaking, dry in his. He grasped it, a knuckle interlock and moved it down to him. It came to life; fingers crept around him in a grasp.

"I'm here."

Harry lost his breath, in choler, in Draco's fist on him, gentle and lively, before it left and an arm came round him.

"Okay," Draco's voice came fuller, and Harry knew he had him. "Okay."

In liquid movements, Draco moved with slow force and aligned their hips. Harry sun smiled into his collarbone.

Draco's hands moved down his back; some mind left Draco, in his hot blood, skin, in his open air breaths, as he rippled slowly under him; Harry felt mind disband. In thrill, in sweat, to the air.

His body moved a slow broil under Harry, palms flat on his lower back; it throttled Harry, a burn running through him like liquor licks. Draco rolled his hips in slow shudders, hands a needling grip, sliding; until his half-words became noise, filterless lungs, a long string of garble.

Harry was pulse and impulse, guillotined, to silence; he fell into something, before he was aware; learned instinct. Jostling a leg up to his hip, hiding in neck, rhythmic jerks – but Draco wasn't a girl.

Harry huffed, almost a laugh. "I don't know what I'm doing."

"That's okay." A hand came down, Harry shifted to accommodate. It wrapped around the pair of them. And Harry exhaled heavily into skin, as it moved with slow vigour; white flame dance in him.

And then it was easy.

The same, but not the same. As Draco rutted under him, in chants and rhythms, as Harry followed; a mirror, but also this exquisite, pulsing thing. A vibrancy, alive.

With nails and noise, throat thatched, Draco flipped them and it became messy, unrestrained. Wrists clasped above him, neck branded hot, in sucks and bites; Harry couldn't keep up with his erratic pulses.

And Harry just let him go.

He couldn't hear, in the violent heat shimmers, in noise, like drunk blabber. Draco was in his own world. Kissing every inch of skin he could reach, in a stream of more wet mouth tongue tooth than kiss, in language-less words. Harry was lost, in it, but with it, with him and kept snatching, catching him, to stare. At wild eyes, lost lips, skin ruptured rough, with sweat and bumps as if coils of ice ran burning through. Volcanic and congealed, together.

He knew, and gathered him in timely, tilted his face. "Here." Draco caught his eyes, grabbed hair in a wild twist, and stared hungrily at his face.

"Look at me." Harry could see him dissolve, crack. An animal break, and Draco shifted in, nose sliding on his cheek to bury and hide, breathing in him, before Harry felt a hot spill over him. Draco crumbled, alternating between swearing and laughing, a heavy slack mess over him.

Harry jolted up, impatient. "Grab –"

He felt a gentle hot hand slide down, wrap over him, but too slow, too timid. A smile tickled his cheek.

"Let me," he groaned, trying to move into it. But a hand on his hip gated him, held him down.

Draco slid to his lips. "Say please," he whispered against him.

"Fucking –" His hand came down, to slap then claw at skin.

Draco laughed loud and breathless, body shaking. His grip became urgent, fast and Harry felt his mind shred. Body a drum, trembling before – white blank page.

It tumbled in, a nonself, a euphoria.

Thumbs skimming his cheeks brought him back, and he opened his eyes to Draco. Skin needle numb and limbless, breath a wreck, he reached slowly between them, and Draco jerked slightly, sensitive, when Harry touched him. He raised fingers and met lips, to taste the saltiness, bittersweet. Draco's drunken eyes watched, a grey slow flame, lips quirking up.

They lay hip to hip, breathing, until Draco rolled over him again, sagging loose. Harry let his fingers droop over his back, moist like steam drips.

"You ramble."

Draco huffed. "That's never happened before. But you – you're –" He laughed breathily. "Like wildfire."

Harry laughed and carted through loosened hair, and Draco moved back to see him. "So you've never …?"

"Not with a guy."

Draco ducked back into skin. "Hmm."

Harry smiled wider. "Was it good?

"Hmm."

Harry tried to tilt him back. "'Hmm'?"

He caught sight of Draco's unreeled smile and laughed, pulling him in to kiss his blush. He felt he understood, the fit.

Draco was quiet for a while, drawing his hand lazily through Harry's hair, before melting into his neck. "Harry," he sighed. He moved, to press a light kiss on each cheek, one soft and solid on his lips, and bit his shoulder, a lazy trail. "I'm never moving."

"And you call me lazy," Harry smiled. His insides glowed, light in his pores.

Draco shook in light laughter. "Not that." He settled heavily, as if crawling in, finding sleep and slumber under Harry's skin. "It's you," he murmured. But Harry felt Draco's bright smile, awake.

"It's you. It's you."

* * *

"In the midst of winter, I found that there was, within me, an invincible summer." - Camus


	34. Hedon

fox cubs learn to hunt, spinning tops, Holy Shit - Father John Misty

* * *

Harry woke to skin unsticking. He opened heavy eyes and his body instantly protested, happy to be boneless.

"Sorry," Draco whispered, crawling back in blankets. "Window was closed."

Harry grunted sleepily and pulled him in blind, gathering him in tight arms, as cold air swam over his bare skin. Dew and salt started, mingling with something sweeter; a warm clot of sweat, skin, of new. The room smelled of male.

Harry blinked, lifted his head. It was pale dawn, not day; thick milky fog hid the sky, wool white and bare pink like foal skin. Dark silhouette trees still asleep, soft songs of hatchlings.

He met his storm eyes. Draco smiled a crooked crease, and looked worn and young.

Harry felt coated in someone else.

He scooted over blurrily, limbs catching and Draco laughed as Harry suckled his neck, hands curious down a body open to him. Puncture of inner hip, softer hair at the back of his thigh. He lumbered Draco's leg over his hip, tugging him over.

"Hey," Draco laughed, straddling him, chest to chest.

"Hey," Harry found his voice thick with sleep, and squeezed Draco's thighs to move him.

Draco's breath caught, but caught on. He followed, rutting in long strokes pulled and pushed by Harry, who ground up harder against him. "Hey," Draco said, a hitched breath.

Harry found a hand, and directed it to find purchase. It gripped him securely, and moved swift and determined; Harry moved into it unapologetically. He pulled Draco in when a tremble ran in him, less kiss and more tongue. "Hello," he breathed into him, and came.

When the rhythms calmed, he heard Draco laughing, sighs and wordless murmurs in breaths, settling back. But Harry jumped up to reciprocate, fist firm and Draco made an agreeable noise, stirring closer.

After, Draco spilt into a spiel, flicking his wand around in agile hands, about the virtue of Vanishing Spells.

"And I'm glad you're a wizard." "And that you're cleaner than I am." "And that you like morning sex." "And that you'll like Silencing Charms better."

Harry mumbled along, eventually shoving him down, crowding him with limbs. "Okay," he wiggled, growing lax. "Okay, sounds nice. Sleep now."

"Are you even awake?" Draco prattled, and Harry heard fingernails click. "Did you just sleep fuck?"

"Yes," Harry squirmed, burying into covers. "Good night."

Draco was quiet and unmoving, and Harry peered an ungrateful eye at him. On an elbow, a wickedness lit his eyes, as he watched Harry. "I want to suck you off."

Harry jerked, eyes shot open. "Jesus fucking Christ."

"Language, Potter."

Harry stared, gaping. "But I just – !" He gestured down at him.

Draco's smile grew, eyes bright. He shifted down, inspecting with careless fingers and flicks so Harry jerked. Draco hummed thoughtfully.

"Okay," he jumped up like a deer. "Coffee break." In springs he ran out, naked. "Don't get dressed," he called back.

Harry stared, at nothing. "What the fuck."

He hadn't forgotten Draco's attention span. Because when he didn't spring back, Harry lay for a long while, mind blank, before shouldering on something soft from the floor and pad out, rubbing his face.

And his erratic energy. He found Draco in a bout of sleep on the rickety couch, flopped, forearm over his face and lips moving softly, the corners pale purple in the lightless room. A half-drank mug sat on the floor; his drooped fingers trailed to it. The coffee looked dirty. His hand moved in quick fingers around his ribs, as if pulling them closer around him. Harry's brow creased, looking down at him. A body he knew so well, but then again;

His hands looked old in the pale grey light, all dry skin and nails. The cold colour stain of his nipple, white pebble nub, the apple of his throat. Concave of collarbone, triangulation. Grains of hair down his legs, a fine dust, darker at his groin. The long rumbles of hill, in thigh muscle, the bones of his knees. Slight hollow of his outer hip over his rear, in shadow.

He grabbed a scratchy blanket from the bedroom and clambered under Draco's arm.

Draco stirred. "Mmm?"

"Mmm." Harry collected him, pulling an arm round his middle.

"Oh," Draco tucked himself in, hid his face. "'Mmm'." He curled their ankles, and became still.

X

He woke to fiddly hands in his back pockets. He looked over his shoulder, to light and growing wind, things hitting the tin roof over his head in an eclectic dance, like bubbling river over rocks.

"What are you doing?" he mumbled.

"Salvaging. You're not cleaner than me." Draco withdrew his hand, and Harry heard a fumble of paper. "Your clothes are like hoof tracks."

"Stag." Harry settled back down, lulled by the tin pings overhead.

"Lion." He heard paper flick and crumble. "What's this?"

Harry turned to frown at him over his shoulder. He took the unfolded thin paper, and felt a smile at the shading. "Oh," he thumbed over the invisible words. "Luca."

Draco paused. "Luca."

Harry held the slip to his face, scrutinizing. "Detective work."

"Oh, stalking."

Harry met his eyes, close enough to see cloud patterns, and raised brows, and Draco stared, unyielding. His lips twitched.

Harry huffed, a smile cracking. "Sure. Let's call it salvaging."

Draco hummed, "Pillage and plunder," and caught his elbow, wrestling over him gently. "Why are you wearing clothes," his voice vibrated Harry's neck, lying flat. "Stupid clothes, stupid man," he tugged back his open shirt.

Harry smile spread, sighing before something flashed, and he frowned mildly at it, stretching under Draco. "I think Luca and I had a moment."

Draco went still, hands fiddling with fabric. Then they erupted, in motion. "Right." He wrestled with Harry's pants, undoing unzipping quick. "That'll do it."

Harry blinked. "What?" Draco tumbled graceless to the floor with a thud, hooking Harry's leg to follow. "What." Draco poised Harry's feet on the floor, apart.

Draco tugged him bare, pants round ankles and handled him rough. Harry flew back flat, head dipping back, and swallowed hard. "What. What's happening."

"You started it last time," he felt Draco's stare, at his body responding, catching on quicker than his mind.

"Explain."

"Bossy," Draco knelt up, notched into something deliberate, poised; familiar, and Harry's heart stopped.

"Oh shit." His voice ruptured. "Do you want to think – talk about –"

"No." Draco tugged his knees towards him, to nestle between, and rubbed large hands up his thighs. "I've wanted this too long."

He kissed gently, and Harry breath caught, froze at lips moving soft around the head, a gentle flick of tongue. Draco met his eyes. A careful gaze, and Harry gave a brief nod. Draco beamed, a flash, before he leaned up and slid quick, to engulf him whole. Harry gave a yelp, and Draco's shoulder's twitched, a curved smile.

Harry watched with wide eyes, lips slackened. "Oh," as his body exploded in nerve. "Oh, you've definitely done this before."

Draco hummed a laugh, sending shock waves. His fingers dragged on Harry's hips, tugging him closer, and gripped tight.

"Oh shit," Harry said, flush. "You're good."

Draco made a delighted noise, and met his eyes. He winked, before sinking down.

Harry laughed breathily. "You know," he lay back, stretching his arms back and watching light catch on dust motes. "You've jumped into everything pretty eager, for a tease." He jiggled his hips up, and Draco looked up. "You should've made me work for it."

Draco couldn't seem to help himself, and emerged with a wet noise. "I swear to God Potter, you're so goddamn smug. I knew you'd be this arrogant in bed –"

Harry laughed in loud echoes, fingers dancing in Draco's hair – but shot up and silenced, when he plunged down again. "Fuck, what –" he lost himself.

A spaceless timeless moment later, Draco surfaced. "If I'd have known this would shut you up –"

"Just –" breath turbulent, his hand found hair blind, directing. "Just shut up, keep going."

"Good God," Draco said. "He's bossy and he begs," he said to no one, but the rest was lost in a mouthful.

Harry laughed until it became noise, breaths and moans, moving into Draco as much as he could, in hands, in hips; but Draco took him. Met him, with every move and more, with obsession, a delighted ritual. Licks and mouth full and hollow, flicker and rolls, sucks and strain. Sporadic and rhythmic, like everything else he did. His body in waves, pull and push of pleasure. And when Harry built, in tension, in a violent groan, at the gates, Draco clamped down – and in tight shoulder discs contracting and claws, he swallowed him whole.

"Are you fucking kidding me –" but Draco was senseless, didn't acknowledge him. He did, however, flick up electric eyes when Harry found ground, tugged the tip of his ear, a nail on rim. And it hit; Draco worked him through it, slow and indulgent, lingering.

Breathing hard, Harry pulled him in with a swung arm, collapsing on him on the floor and in kiss, toppling. Draco laughed, legs wrapping, shoving at his thighs to pull him close.

"You're amazing," and Harry could taste himself, which almost made him reel back, but with an explorative tongue he found he liked it; the proof of it, physical strain of him. The permanence.

"My ear," Draco said into his mouth, voice crackling raw. "My ear, Potter."

Harry moaned a laugh, and began bucking, holding hair to watch his face ignite and lose.

"Tell me it was the best," Draco's eyes shone.

"You needy shit –"

Draco cackled wildly under him, in loud drums and rips, writhing and teasingly scratching down his back, and Harry murmured into him in chants, "best, best, best."

"I know," Draco gasped. "I think it'll be my next career move."

"You're insane." Harry found grip, and moved relentlessly, so Draco crumbled, eyes wide. "You're actually insane."

X

They didn't get dressed.

Draco lounged, hacking back fruit husk and sucking fingers, or pranced around, in pride and play, and Harry found he simply couldn't; Draco would be there, frowning and fumbling it off. He eventually gave up, gave in to every advance.

He wanted to tell the world that Draco Malfoy was a storm. White and fairy feather air, full brew and black, lightning and electric. He could be fucking adorable in sex, asking meaningless questions, half-phrases and spiels – "How are you doing that" "Where did you learn" "Since when and where and why" "Who are you Harry Potter" – In constant shock, constant intrigue. Revolving and unrolling himself into it like a landscape, trekking and experimental and probing. A godless religion; babbling commands and encouragements, subservient to his own power, laughing at himself and it all; like Harry was the landscape and the Cause, something picturesque, worshipful. Or else inviting others and no one, his imaginary mind friends; his narration and drawl, narrating Harry's laugh and noise to the air, his body and fire.

Mindless. But all mind; he was this beautiful, frenzied thing. An outpour, of all he was.

He found Draco shivering outside, eyes narrowed and unaware, thumb and finger lodged on his protruding hip. Harry chinned his shoulder, drawing a blanket around them.

Draco watched the cream sky, clouds silken skin and stretched out. In brush strokes by wind, like sea foam and paint leaks. Curdled clumps at the skyline. And breaks, in the clouds with freckles of light. The grass swam in tides like lashes and blinks, swept in a single stream. Evening light rusted the plains, to sand and russet like back muscle, folding and arching over each other. Silhouetted mountains in the distance very bodily as if the body hadn't left it, and stood before them.

"Pretty place," Draco smiled over at him.

Sunset hit the horizon like an inner crease of skin, pink fold. He could hear Draco's moans in the bowl howl over moors, and licked a neckline.

Draco considered him, eyes flickering, before he spun in his arms and knelt down on his knees. "Just watch it go by."

Harry stroked his hair and grinned down at him, his fast work. "You're a dream."

Flat tongue thanked him.

X

"I knew you'd be like this," Draco's fingers stepped down his back later, pulse coming down. "It's the same as when you're flying."

They lay with a crackle of fire and storm tunes overhead, on worn carpet, enveloped up. Moulting in the night and shadows, in the sharp sour scent, of sweat and body and male. Harry could taste it in Draco, his skin hollows and lines, rough follicles and patterned hair; he could taste it in himself, under his fingernails, in the dips and webs of his hands; the mash of their skin, bittersweet.

He leaned up to look down at Draco. "What do you mean?"

"It's like …" Draco looked away, mind stepping off. "It's like when you eat. You eat with your hands. You suck every last bit off your fingers, let it play in your mouth." He drew lines around Harry's mouth, nail on his lip. "You coat your lips," he whispered. "Savour it all."

Harry frowned down at him, amid a smile; Draco looked enraptured and soft.

"And when you cook," Draco's lips flickered, watching him. "You're … _there_ , the whole time. Sauces and spices, fumbling and laughing. A great mess. Active body. No recipe, no end product."

"Even though you like my food –"

Draco pressed a finger on his lips, to gently silence him. "And in Potions, you watch everything, feel it all. All under your hands."

"Speaking of Potions –"

Draco tugged his bottom lip and shook his head slightly, amused. "And when you wake up, it takes you forever. You make a whole _thing_ about it. Grumbling and groaning, blinking at the day, to place yourself. You feel it all, over you."

Harry watched him, his mind play out in his face.

"You roll up your sleeves, all rough and gruff, so it's sloppy but it _fits_ , like fits you perfectly so it becomes you, and whatever you're about to do."

Harry shook his head softly, thinking.

Draco stroked up his cheek, and watched his mouth. "You put life into everything."

Harry's lips parted, but nothing came out. He leaned to nibble, then capture lips; Draco fell into it. His lips were a wondrous thing, and after a sunken moment Draco shifted, and Harry felt hard heat jab his hip. Like a finger, pointedly.

Draco leaned away, to lie flat as a tomb. "Come on," he whispered, and closed his eyes. "Worship me."

Harry stared, and felt a smile buckle. He moved over, and did just that.

X

The bedroom was a new place, new layers. A heaviness, as they lay in tangles of fingers and hair and limbs moving like whispers, in the stories it could tell.

Out the window, the moon was caught earthbound. The grass glittered like glass and stars, dew dark. The beds and valleys, milk white and dark honey and sweet silver syrup; it permeated the place, a moon coat. It kissed it spread; it sucked the colour, sucked the balm and marrow.

Harry stared at Draco, unnoticed, something sitting on his tongue. Draco watched clouds play with the moon, and Harry let it out.

"How long, Draco," he said quietly.

Draco didn't change. "Long," he said after a pause.

Harry made to shift closer, but chose against it. "Years?"

Draco sucked in his lower lip, brow furrowed, and didn't reply.

"You should have told me," Harry said quieter.

"When?" Draco's mouth tipped, into a false smile. "When you were post face-blown, in front of me in the Manor? Or dead, in Hagrid's arms? Or asleep, in my bed, when I'd fucked someone the night before?"

Harry was halted to silence. His stomach clenched but it felt empty.

"You should have told me," he said after a while.

Draco looked over, and met his eyes. "No, because," he paused, "maybe you just wouldn't have wanted to understand."

Harry frowned at him, and Draco gave a vacant smile.

"That's what you said," he said. "The first time you came over to the flat."

Harry felt that hot swell, from the night before, at half-truths and half-ins, and rolled gently off the bed. It was sick nostalgia that followed, crawling to the kitchen, at crawling through shadows, at night rises, at walking alone.

Draco was quiet, but Harry was attuned. He felt him behind him, as he prepped coffee, and fumbled with the kettle, clumsy loud hands in the dark.

He felt a touch on his waist, a soft hand. "Put some chocolate in," Draco said to his shoulder. And Harry closed his eyes, something falling in him. "It'll help."

He only opened his eyes when he heard couch springs adjust for weight. He put the damn chocolate in.

He watched the aquarium night outside for a while, until –

A light, in his peripherals –

The silver otter swam in, a ghost through walls and spoke to him in her voice. "McGonagall is suspicious." It paused. "We miss you."

It faded. Harry breathed in the dark, his breath stirring the still nothing. He unfocused on the grass whip outside, in their own time and rhythm.

He could feel Draco's stare from the couch.

X

They slept in a heap regardless, though Draco followed him too late to the bedroom. Harry slept restless, and at one point grew too conscious, and stood to stretch at the window, at the unchanged shades of night.

Draco's voice came quiet behind him, from the bed. "You want to go back."

Harry looked behind his shoulder shortly, but looked back, and thought. "I don't want to be anonymous."

Draco was quiet, and Harry crawled back into bed. Draco watched him carefully, and gave a small smile. "Anonymity is only temporary."

Though his face was shadows, his eyes were light, in white hairlines, grey petals.

Harry touched his jaw. "This isn't free, Draco," he said quietly.

Draco looked down, brow creasing slightly. "I'll make tea," he got up long limbed.

Harry watched, and felt a cold starkness start, like a cold drip. _Temporary_.

"You recognised me, didn't you," he said, when Draco came back to the room a moment later.

Draco was half down to the bed, but levelled up again.

"What?" Draco said behind him, slipping out.

In the silence, the kettle whistled.

But Harry knew Draco knew what he meant.

* * *

Dasein = Being in the World, the distinctly human phenomenon

watch Rufus - Innerbloom for the visuals, if you want to be at the cabin with them


	35. Ode

"Love, what've you done with my tongue? I open my mouth but you hear me wrong" Cigarettes & Loneliness - Chet Faker, peppermint oil, gold sheets

* * *

Sex changed everything.

Harry decided this, watching Draco shred wild mint, to smoke it back. On weathered chairs brought outside, with a streak of light on his spread bare legs and ankles crossed, sleeves rolled on his borrowed jumper. His lip would curl in distaste, but he kept at it, cheeks hollowing and eyes probing in delight, at the paper burn and smoke in new light.

There's an interesting power to it. To touch him, and understand how it felt; to watch it unfold, in his hands, in other hands, parts of parts, a synecdoche of sames.

Was it sex? It was so different from what he'd known; muffled sounds and locked doors at the Burrow, country sun on damp skin, sneaking out at morning. Half-formed plans and holding hands. A malleable, soft thing, a feminine other, warm and sweet with him; she'd cry out, for things left unsaid. Until it was an inevitable.

He was balanced and met, in Draco. He found he was exploring himself, in another – in reactions, in watching reactions. Hearing himself in their voice. In alignment with him, competing with him; a reflector. In Draco's hard power and swift force, his hot and dry, blood and air.

In heartbeats and hands, in warmth or quiver. Harry was stronger, could hold him down and up, but Draco was faster, could knock out his knees, so he could climb and tower over him, could chase him down.

A body was a rapture. And Harry knew him, could see him; and loved it, he loved it.

X

They didn't talk about it. He knew 'suspicious' was an understatement, that if McGonagall was finally doing something about it, it was over.

"We're running out of mugs." Draco cupped water from the tap, letting it drip from the corner of his mouth like veins.

How did this start? In a potions classroom, in Fiendfyre, in a bar?

"You know, you can clean."

In Post, in privacy?

"Of course," Draco picked his nails, and started skimming over the floor. "Of _course_. Of _course_ I can. Of _course_ I of _course_ can –"

Harry chucked a ball of yellowing newspaper with a quick jolt of arm, and Draco laughed and tore it to shreds.

X

Sex was weaponry.

Sometimes his body would feel like an old door, lifting a leg, or an arm above his head, when waking up or walking. It creaked like the cabin.

Draco's eyes gleamed in the dark like embellished lettering on books. "I like to bite," he said quietly, finding soft parts of skin.

Harry could sometimes see a shadow of his old self, old snark, in the twist of a lip or an edge to his voice. A mosaic tile.

"You scratch your ear like a dog," Draco spat across the room. "Brute."

Harry let axed wood tumble from his arm and sprinted over, but Draco darted like a fox. "Look –" he ricocheted off couch corners, vaulting over things and got hold of an elbow. "Look at this," he jerked up his shirt, to show the end of scratches trailing to his ribs, dots of dried blood. "You animal."

Sometimes he was the most honest, shadowless. Staring unwavering eyes. He could imagine that Draco saw similar things as what Harry did. Saw him fall apart, saw a light leave.

Draco threw his head back to laugh, snatching out of his grip and darted to the bedroom; when Harry passed the doorframe Draco shoved from nowhere, pinning him to the bed. Harry felt air punched out of his lungs, and Draco grinned wide down at him.

His eyes were childplay. "Fight me."

X

The silver jack russell flickered for a moment before fading and all Harry could think of was Deluminators and a chest of light.

Draco stood behind him, pulling locks of hair to their ends. "Your hair is almost long enough to tie up." Harry was reminded of the last year, of Hermione chopping it back, of running around aimless.

Maybe Ron didn't know how to communicate with patronus'. Maybe it didn't work.

"I've converted you," Draco nipped at the nape of his neck. "Hermit."

"I thought it was vagrant."

"Sounds too urban, we're wilderness now."

"You never wear shoes," Harry argued. He liked to 'trek his day', Draco said, calculate it in the leftovers left on his feet. "And you don't sleep correctly."

Maybe Ron didn't need words. Maybe Draco didn't know whose it was.

"Correctly," Draco repeated, like a sour taste on his tongue. "3pm. I never see 3pm. I think that means something."

"It doesn't."

X

Sex was an oasis.

He felt gluttonous; he had Draco's scent infused in his body. Sometimes he would be disgruntled by it – it had the potency to mask his own, it had the rebellion of a secret, something covered by clothes. But then he realised he could own it. Wear it on his chin.

It could fill him up like Draco's glass bottles and jars on the windowsills of the cabin, filled with dead petals and bristles and other residue of beautiful things.

"Let's get married," Draco tiptoed over whispering grass, with airplane arms. "I'll take your name."

"Can we even get married? As men." Harry had no idea; he had no representation of it.

"Nah," Draco pumped his ring finger with a fist. "Not by their books."

Harry wanted to shake his head at him, roll his eyes, shove him, but Draco stomped in a puddle ahead of him. Harry kicked pale sticks like driftwood instead.

"We can stomp and chant around a fire," Draco said. "Wield rings from metallic earth."

"No one would recognise that, legally."

In the midst of it, it could be a binge. Like that ache of blood at the back of his throat after running. A wanderlust face, a rapid-fire in slow motion, an everlasting luxe, in a still. A narcotic depletion, heroin craze.

At the wake of it, it could be an invitation.

Draco straddled him, panting, and shook his head back like a dragon. Harry found his hand and guided it under his jaw, sucking a finger, while his other hand pumped; Draco shifted to cover his eyes like a mask, and kissed him sweetly.

"Let's be strangers," he whispered.

Harry didn't exist in this space, but all he was was this space.

X

"Do you really think that about monogamy?" he said on the bed, as Draco's fingers trailed a little too close. It made you think about intimate things. The most intimate, the faraway shiny chandelier words.

Draco's hands cupped instead, kissing his shoulder blades. "I don't know what I think."

Draco shifted, so Harry could see fake freckles over his face, night shadows from the leaves and branches tapping the window.

"But, Luca?" Harry said.

"We had an understanding," Draco lay back soft and tall. "To not understand each other."

Harry wanted to understand him. Draco unhinged his mouth wide so his jaw crackled, the bolt under his thumb.

"Did you want to date me?" Harry said.

"No," Draco paused. "I don't know what that was. Attraction. Anger, at you, and myself. And I was in the midst of a nervous breakdown," he smiled at himself. He turned to Harry. "But a lot was about this," he poked his hip, too sharp. "Only last summer I figured out why, why I was so angry."

Harry watched him, his chest rise and fall slowly, and laced fingers with the ugly scars there.

Draco looked to them for a moment. "I wanted you to hurt," he whispered. "I didn't want you."

Harry couldn't find anything to say. Like so many other things, it was just there, in bloody hands and the big big web of everything.

He looked at the floor, at Malfoy's black clothes and his recycling ones. Wanting someone was a different thing, when you had them.

X

Sex was flux. It was Draco.

Even Draco's pleads sounded like questions, with lilted endings and room for a grand conclusion – though he didn't leave room for answers. It was nonsense, said not for the words but for the candescence of sound over throat and tongue and teeth into the void, into Harry's ears. The temporal tune, in organ lungs, in hums. His eyes, heaven grey and wide.

Draco lay flat and open like a cross, of pale limbs on the couch, before rolling a curious hand over himself.

Harry hesitated, before crawling across the floor, half-kneeling. "What are you doing?"

"I don't know," he licked his own slow smile, and leaned back. But he did, they both did. "Don't touch." Draco poised his feet to pedestal on Harry's shoulders, to hold him back and steady himself.

"Watch."

Sometimes he looked at Harry like he had answers, and Harry wouldn't know what to do with that. He'd hide instead, pucker wide bites over his shoulders like open red lotus flowers.

Harry sat watching Draco roll grainy bread in his mouth across the table, his cheeks bulging. He sipped wine. He came over and bit that part of his neck he knew would make him end up knocked to the floor.

"Subservient, aren't I," Draco mumbled, at the tip, at the bald monk head of him.

Harry lay back flat under the table, sighing and twisting carpet, twitching into his mouth. No, no he wasn't.

X

Perhaps this place could do with pine needles too.

And more cooking equipment, things were too old here. A better axe, sharpened blade. It needed more light, Harry thought, he could fix that up, and the door creaked like another inhabitant, and they needed more clothes, really. And less dust. And Draco bitched about the coffee, they needed – More things, more sprouts and imprints.

Harry only caught his mistake when the sun set. And dark fell on the cabin and he stood in the middle of it. He went outside, in the cold for an hour, alone.

Draco protested by putting clothes back on.

Harry crawled up blankets to his lean form, bed-length long, and fiddled with buttons and sleeves. "Don't," he said. "Let me."

He undressed him slowly, rubbing fingers over fabric, peeling it back, to Draco's curious eyebrows. He spread himself luxuriously, stretching his arms behind him and smiling but Harry got hold of his shoulders.

"Don't move," Harry said, tasting his chest.

Draco was watchful, patient, as it all left. He raised his arms, shifted up his hips, in timely movements, letting Harry uncurl it all, unbuckle it, in layers. The sheets looked discoloured, beige, next to his alabaster white.

Harry pulled at his lower lip with teeth, and whispered. "Let me."

Night wore a sheath over his bare skin, like sheer fabric. A thin cover, as Harry moved over him with tracing lips, that made it feel more intimate, bare.

"Curious, are you," Draco watched him.

Harry watched his body respond, and mouthed at his thigh. "I just want to explore you."

Harry tracked his shelf secrets, hidden in his home. Bruises the colour of autumn leaves, aging, on his hips and inner thigh. His softness, blurred like pastel oil painting smears, his masculine edges. As Harry shifted to mouth along him, a slow taste and hard heat in his mouth, Draco sighed. "Well, now I'm not moving for anything."

He thought of the start of the year, of how this person could lull him into a dream state. His pale powder skin and electric beats, with a life of its own, all under Harry's hands.

He kissed up the line of pelvic hair. "You're so beautiful," he murmured.

When he trailed to his ribs, he looked up and caught eyes. Draco made a breathy sound, almost a laugh. Night softened his face, soft cheekbones and parted lips like a darker ink blot, sharpened his eyes.

Something roughened under Harry's touch – scars. He followed them, familiar things, between their bodies. Cracked up like pottery, hairline forks worn and weathered, with white and pink filler; his fingers lined it. An arid desert, dried out and cracked up.

Draco was still, but moved after a moment, and Harry shifted to accommodate. He touched the mark on the centre of Harry's chest. Harry watched fingers move tentatively, as if it were a new wound, but then surely, hand flat. He grabbed Harry's hand, and tapped at the etched words there. Then his forehead in a quick touch.

Harry looked up. "I thought we didn't talk about scars."

Draco looked around his face, lips pressed tight. "No, we don't."

And Harry wasn't sure if it was a statement of fact, or a declarative.

Harry frowned down at his chest. At the ship wreck there, and handled it possessively. "You're perfect," he said quietly and solid, like an argument.

Fingers in his hair made him look up, and Draco considered him, before pulling him in. "I don't want to be perfect," he said against his lips, and grappled with him with sharp arms, to flip them, to pin him down.

Draco smiled down at him, eyes flashing.

"I want to be ruined."

* * *

"Do you believe in time? I don't, but I know you do" - A.P


	36. Hogwash

History's Door - Husky, this song, that's all

* * *

When it came down to it, it seemed all Draco was waiting for was Harry.

Harry rounded up things, nothing really of his, to put by the door. He spent too much time, picking things up, to replace them, to look down at them, chewing his lip, to move around in jolts. Draco followed like a game, in pretend, moving things around in circles and humming.

He only added sprigs of heath to the pile.

Harry stood by the door for a while and watched it all in front of him, the place, take him. Everything, out there, and felt too much at once.

Draco came up quiet behind him, and took his hand.

X

The flat became them.

"Oh."

Harry turned to Draco, to watch him take in the room with wide eyes, and touched his wrist slightly. He thought it was the squalor, but then Draco said, "I – didn't think here."

"Where else?"

Draco just shook his head slightly, and Harry frowned.

He took in the wreck. He was a stranger in his home. Like dusted up luggage, still unpacked.

Too built up from within to be four white walls –

– bottles and ash and book clutter, paper and binding – pushed up on walls and empty gaps of floorboards – corks and hatch of pine and butts and – was that his grinder, wooden skeleton – piles, piles on piles – speckled sheets wound up in it all like ropes – fruit moulted to dark heady scent like maple –

The air sat stale and virginal. "I'm going to clean."

"You do that."

But he remained unmoving, and Draco was tall, clasping hands.

Draco cleared his throat. "I can think of something else we can –"

Harry was on him before he could finish. Hands too sure and unsteady, too much at once, grappling at clothes and to take it off, his shirt, finding skin and clutching, and shoving him down on the couch.

"Finally," he caught from Draco, but it had only been this morning since, and then he was under Draco and his pants were off, legs spread, and Draco mouthed at him, shoving Harry's knees over his shoulders to take him in deep.

"Yes."

Harry hadn't seen the roof like this, from this angle.

"Yes," he said, "yes," and then again and again, moving his hips tentatively, head lolling back.

The room went untouched.

X

Harry felt the bed under him, his naked body and felt like a tourist.

"This bed," Draco said. "This bed, Harry, look what we've done to it."

Harry looked around. Like visiting a chapter of his life and refurbishing, and nodded. "Mmm."

"Baptised," Draco spread his hands priestly, pinching ash to dust to the sound of silk. "Deflowered."

"You're so odd."

"Yes," Draco nodded, running hands over Harry, then perked up. Harry watched his bright eyes, scrambling to cross his legs. "Harry," he glowed. "We have a shower here. And neighbours, and a balcony."

"Excuse me," Harry propped up on an elbow. "Is this a fantasy thing."

"Oh, but you _are_ the fantasy, all those times you'd be grunting on that stupid couch or surly on balcony mornings and I'd just –"

"You're," Harry said under his hands. "Oh my God, you're ridiculous –" and pulled him back under.

After, when Draco was bleary and sated, spread out like in child sleep, he said in a slur, "Okay, so this flat."

"Yes, I was thinking garbage bags."

"I was thinking fire, exhume –"

"No," Harry said. "And we should do up this bed, sometime."

"We just did this bed," Draco squirmed to lick his come from Harry's mouth.

"No, like fold sheets under, proper," Harry said.

"Why," Draco said, licking inside his mouth.

Sleep was too welcome, too familiar here and Harry fell into it like arms, with the sounds and smells here. Draco curled in him, making soft pucker and curdle noises in sleep, once murmuring,

"Hogwarts," like a drunk slur. "I thought you –"

"Tomorrow," Harry pulled him in. "Tomorrow."

X

Harry was too active in the morning, tripping over and serving Draco things, food and coffee, lighting his smoke, unwrinkling robes, as if setting something up. Soil had tipped on the balcony from pots.

Draco stared at his flat for a while, hand tracing his mouth.

They got to the Hall doors, and looked at each other.

"Pansy," said Draco declaratively.

"Hermione," Harry instantly protested.

Draco watched him. There was a pause, before his eyes grew an edge. "Surprised she hasn't jumped up already –"

"Hey," his voice flared. "She's my best friend."

"So's Pansy."

"You said you don't have friends."

"True, we always cross lines."

Harry stared until Draco's lips twitched. "Please tell me that doesn't mean –" Harry rubbed his face. "Or, is that about me – You know, don't worry." Draco smiled all young and smug and Harry thought, then said, "Family comes first."

Draco slid into a frown. "Family," he said, slow and stale.

Harry grinned. "Weasley's," he knocked into Draco's elbow, triumphant. "Come on."

"Lord Almighty and Saints beyond –" Harry found the knob of his elbow, and steered for a moment.

"He's my family."

"Weasley's – Weasley's."

Harry trailed in front. "Off we go."

He felt Draco behind him, walking through the Hall, gaze fixed on one spot to block out everything and all the mass. An old tactic. It hit him anyway. There they were, Ron and Hermione sitting alone, heads ducked and talking and Ron looked up and shot up from his seat, cutlery falling from his hands.

Harry stopped too. And Ron looked a flush mix of things, before he sat, gaze flickering to Draco.

Too aware that Draco had boarded up stiff, Harry climbed into a seat and looked between them.

Harry opened his mouth for a while. "I'm safe. I –"

"Yeah," Ron's eyes were a little wide, and sat too tall, and Hermione was watching Harry's hands with pressed lips. "We got prongs, those few times."

"Yeah," Harry nodded. "Yeah."

Harry opened and closed his mouth a few times, suddenly aware of his stubble and hair, tucking the ends behind his ears, and Hermione's lips were too tight.

"So," Ron broke the silence. "You're a thing," his gaze flickered again, "now."

"Yeah, yeah he's – my," Harry cleared his throat. "Mine – he'll be around."

Ron and Hermione exchanged a quick look, and Ron nodded slowly.

"You don't –" Harry watched his hands lay flat on the table. "You've both done so much – you know – you don't have to like it."

Ron caught his eye, and they watched each other. After a moment he shrugged half-heartedly and mumbled non-committally.

Harry paused and then beamed. "Yeah?"

Ron mumbled again, and waved a hand in front of him. Harry understood, and wanted to leap across the table but was still, and Ron said abruptly, like a lost thought, "He can't be a prat to Hermione."

"No," Harry nodded quickly. "He'll be good."

Draco coughed. Harry ignored him, but could feel his unsettled movements, on his feet, like he both wanted to hover and hide and didn't.

He caught Hermione's eye, her loaded eyes. He reached over to take her hand on the table, and it curled warm and soft in his. She watched him nod slightly, and smiled small and sweet with him.

He looked over, and Draco looked prim and tall, his eyes too wide as if taking in a house for the first time. Harry could reach to touch his wrist in their distance.

Draco teetered on his feet. "Potter," he hesitated, before leaning in slightly. "Pansy," he said quietly. "I –"

"Alright," Harry let go. "Come back."

Draco nodded, and turned but turned back, everything a little stiff, and cleared his throat. "Weasley. Granger." Then stepped off in sharp taps of his shoes, to the Slytherin table.

Harry stared at the floor for a while. Then looked between his friends.

"So, news?"

He could hear Pansy's screams of rage from across the Hall.

X

Eventually, Hermione sighed, "Just go, Harry."

Harry jerked around for the umpteenth time.

"What?"

"You're obviously not with us," she smiled down at her twirling teaspoon. She clinked it and looked up. "We're fine."

"Oh," Harry craned his neck around again, and caught Pansy's razor cut hair and gaze. He grinned at Hermione. "I'll see you later."

She rolled her eyes, and he watched his feet instead of the mass of Hogwarts robes move across the Hall, and slid in close to Draco.

Draco pursed his lips and didn't look up, rubbing coffee grains in his fingers. Pansy stared Harry down, opposite, clicking talons on the table.

"Yours, am I?" Draco said eventually.

"Yeah," Harry served himself globs of potato.

"You know," Draco scratched his chin. "If you wish for goods or services you must exchange currency."

"What," Harry said.

"What do I get?"

"Me," Harry let potato mush splat, and Pansy scoffed. "Of course."

Draco hummed, his fingers dancing over a mug. "And if I get bored."

"You won't get bored."

Draco turned to Pansy. "See, Potter doesn't rely on reason."

"I've never bored you."

"Or logic, apparently."

"Potter," Pansy said tightly. "I can't believe – this is – Potter, Draco."

Harry ignored her. "Neither do you."

"Illogical and dumb." Draco stated.

"Since when did you even swing the other way?"

Harry ignored her shrill voice. "We can be unreasonable. Together unreasonably."

"And if I get horny?"

"I'm insatiable."

"And if I get curious."

"You'll get jealous."

"What the shit is going on," Pansy gave a little shriek.

"I don't get _jealous_ ," Draco yapped on, flicking his hands. "I don't _own_ , _possess_ –"

"Blaise," Harry said, clunky. "Blaise – he bought me a drink, a _drink_ and you –"

"You're – basically sitting on his lap, Potter."

But Harry didn't know how to not touch Draco. His hand was brushing Draco's leg under the table, and now aware of it, moved it to splay over his thigh.

Aware too, Draco bat it away but Harry curved an arm behind him, hand flat and thumb circling his lower back. "You're so _handsy_ , Potter," Draco said, arching out of his hold.

Harry grunted, agreeing and a dispute, and scooted closer, hand curling near Draco's knee.

"'He'll be good'," Draco said high and clucky. "' _He'll be good'_ , is that how it's going to be? Preen and prop me up for the show."

"Stop being hysterical," Harry's foot flirted up Draco's ankle, moving back clothes. "We're just flatmates."

"Hermit, too urban," Draco scrunched his nose.

"Shut up," Harry said, and shoved him but Draco yipped and fought dirty, tugged at a tuft of hair. "Hey –" he jerked away.

Pansy made an odd squawk, and Harry looked at her. She blinked at them, licked her lips. "That's something I'd like to see."

"Pervert," Draco declared, inspecting his coffee and Harry took a while to understand.

Pansy was still watching when he looked back, flushing a bit. "I don't know if you've noticed, Potter," she said, shaking back her hair. "But Draco is all talk."

Draco rolled his shoulders. "People only talk about themselves, even when they're talking about other things."

Pansy glared something vicious, and Draco smiled in submission. "I follow through," she said, words heavy on something unsaid.

"You're all talk," Harry said clean cut, like a conclusion, and waited until Draco took a measured gulp, nose screwed in indignation. "Except in one area."

Draco spat over the table.

X

They were different alone.

When robes could be stashed somewhere, when Draco could draw with a sharp pinpoint of quill over Harry's chest at night, to 'trek his day' on his skin.

Harry found he didn't like waking up in a dormitory with too many sleepers and curtains and sidelong looks, with his searching hands, in disrupted sleep, over empty sheets. He didn't like sharing dawns alone at a window, or walking in the common room, looking in the mugs and chairs like something was missing.

"Days are too long," Draco would say, ink trailing to Harry's arms.

In classes, Professors were kinder and slower than he expected and he was less lost, and students were more watchful than expected. An air of suspicion and distaste followed him. Probably because he couldn't stop his hands from touching Draco and they turned to watch each other rather than withdrawing to watch themselves. From what he could gauge, it was common knowledge they were friends, something like that – Draco's presence tended to cloud what he could gauge.

Now that he was sleeping with Draco, maybe they became something detectable. A fingerprint. Like how he could anticipate Draco's movements, and resettle, reshuffle with him; how hands could find each other blind. It hid, unhidden on his skin.

When Draco was there, he didn't really care. It really only affected the ink on his body, when someone was too suspicious, explicit or rude, and Draco would paint a whirlwind of question marks and confusion.

"The devil is in the details," he decided, hiding it all under Harry's school shirt.

Secret worlds and night life blinking in daylight. _Anonymity is only temporary._

X

"What are we having?" Draco slinked down beside him at the Hall and settled all loose, shifting around, perching fingertips on the wood.

"Very, _very_ nutritious breakfast," Draco handled toast from the rack, to smack them down flat on the table. "Good, good Gryffindor, all food groups covered," he chirped, grabby at vines of grapes, scattering them.

"Easy," Harry snatched to stop some rolling off.

"Oi, you," Draco snatched back. "Bisexual bandit, leave me be," he squinted at the coffee.

"That's an awful – You're not funny."

"Weasley would laugh if he wasn't being so awkward."

Ron was staring a bit too intently at his food, to be fair, and Harry watched Draco's morning pallor and bite, his throaty voice, bleary eyes over a mug. The little pink love bite under his jaw from the night before. Until he shot up tall and turned to Harry, eyes alight.

"Let's get drunk."

"What," Harry said. "You're, no."

"No, tonight. _Blind_ drunk, yes, and we can wrestle and I'll win –"

"Drink your coffee, please."

Draco leaned in closer, fingers shifty over Harry's sleeve like a secret. "We'll do shots, and you'll get all sweet like you do, and I'll work you over slow like a favour –"

"Be good."

"– and you'll get all _pushy_ midway of course and start with the commands –"

"Okay," Harry shuffled away, scooting down the table opposite Hermione, taking the chance to readjust his pants. "That'll do."

"I don't want to eat alone, Potter."

"Bond," Harry looked away, licking jam off his fingers. He broke away from the High table, and caught Hermione watching with pursed lips, from McGonagall's sharp gaze. A trial for another time.

"So Hermione, how come I'm not expelled?"

"Expelled," Hermione recited like a wrong answer, folding napkins. "People have been leaving all year, taking time off."

"Is this not a school anymore," Harry said.

"It's many things now," Hermione said a little forlorn, looking around. "Refuge, safety. War ground."

Harry looked at her, hands dropping.

"People come and go. Family time," she said to the napkins, with delicate fingers.

Family. "But, why me?" Harry said.

Hermione looked up and smiled. Harry searched her, before catching drift of Draco's babble, an arm's length away.

" – just open your throat, Weasley," Draco spun a glass in his jittery fingers, the contents toppling over. "You open –"

Ron sat opposite, and looked a bit sick, but like he didn't know why, blinking hard at the table.

" – I'm teaching you the precise art," Draco shot the glass over to Ron, "how to _savour_ the drink, guzzle –"

Ron stared at him, like he was a tetchy cat or unruly child. "Guzzle," he fumbled, sludgy.

"Yes, suckle –" Draco cast around the table. "Maybe we need something with taste, that's half the problem, the reflux, shock –"

"I don't – what –"

"Here, listen – I taught Harry," Draco asserted himself over the table, jittering around. "Now he's marvellous –"

"You taught …"

"Not like me, no one's like me, right Harry tell me –"

Harry thought Hermione was trying to engage him in conversation but he waved indistinctly.

"Yes, yes – acidic? Orange juice maybe – or sweeter, juice of the pumpkin, just for Harry –"

"Harry, what's he really teaching me."

"He started it, Harry," Draco poured without watching, eyes wide at him. "He got me talking about coffee."

"Harry –"

"You told me to bond – Come on, suckle it down – it's not in the suction, like you'd think, it's in the _hollow_ , _open_ it up –"

"Harry," Ron said, in distress. "Harry why are you laughing."

"I'm going to kill you," Harry said, muffled into his hands. "I will, I will kill you – hex you."

"You know, the first time I guzzled, Harry, my ear –"

Harry shot over violently and slapped over his mouth. "You are _filth_ , that is –"

Draco's eyes were bright and boyish and Harry realised he spat in his hand. Harry twitched it back and stared, before smearing it on his neck and Draco gasped and bat him away, mouth wide open.

"What are we _do_ ing," Pansy trot over, and Draco turned to shove his tongue in his cheek, and needle the bumps of his throat.

"Oh," Pansy nodded. "It's in the muscles, _open_ –"

"I hate you all – fucking Slytherins, I hate –" Harry shot up and Ron was gaping.

"HARRY – WHAT –"

"I'm going," Harry tumbled over and stomped off but Draco pranced along, predatorily, following with his hands circling Harry's hips.

"Come on," he said in Harry's ear. "Can you taste me, my honeysuckle –"

"You're fucked up," Harry kept up the pace. "You're so fucked up," and Draco's cackle rang off the regal ceiling, and Harry shoved him into the first broom closet he could find.

X

Alone is different.

When Harry found Draco one morning curled around something on the couch he thought was sleep but was Lou, popping his lips in his twitching ears. Or when Draco said things, put things to words,

"Sometimes I don't know if I want to have you or be you," he said to the air,

That were there without words,

With his arms spread bed-length like something sacrificial, once the damp post-sex glaze had grown stale, and Harry would nod because he understood a little even though he didn't want to.

"I don't know how to 'make'," Harry said in an attempt,

Said to the windows in the street, tipping himself over the balcony edge like the dead greenhouse,

But Draco would always look at him as if he already knew.

Nightmares came back, when real life did. Instead of the echo of an old clang in his head, it became him –

Like ivy in his brain fed and watched and kept alive by walking life. And Draco would wake up talking about Harry cutting him up and Harry still couldn't put his to words, that everyone left him down a black spiral of dream and death –

That sometimes it felt like all he knew, all he brought, and he'd cling on with the hollow sound of 'Stay' sour in his mouth.

Alone, when Draco would bring his face up to sunlight, under his thumbs, when he whispered into his wrist like a secret,

"I'd like to see the world from your glasses."

X

Draco did uncap white liquor that night, but Harry didn't mind because a short time of Draco challenging and laughing with himself turned to his bitter wet mouth, slow and luxurious and honey with him, and a yellow dusted balcony.

Dark blue night was streaked with long yellow clouds, strung out and lazy, in molten gold dust, brighter at the snippet of horizon and Harry had to wonder how he got here, in gold.

Moths fluttered in the dusk, smog grey brown, so many, as Draco paid absolute attention, nestling heath with all the rest with careful fingers.

The bedroom was asleep, but let them lay, with soft fingers and sighs. Draco touched his scar, like he had but in a way he hadn't, and Harry shifted to see him.

His finger lined it up, and Harry said, "You heal me," or heard himself say, before tugging a sheet higher around him.

Draco looked at him.

Harry glanced, and looked back to frown at him. "What?"

Draco looked with astral eyes, wide.

Harry shifted up to look better in the dark, to see his eyes soften to skies. Draco shook his head slightly, a small smile in a pillow, and said, "You kill me."

Harry smiled back, and watched his eyes dry to a slow white blank.

"I can see it," he whispered, and pointed at his face, the corner of his mouth. A gentle finger, to needle at the rim of his eye. "Right there," he said. "You just understood."

But he remembered what happened last time, and let his hand drop in caution.

Draco just watched. "We're in love, aren't we."

Harry watched him for a moment, before lying on his back. "Yeah," he said. "I think so."

Draco paused. "So you knew."

"Yeah," Harry could see cracks in the roof and wondered if it was neighbours or them or something past that cracked it. Maybe it was set with cracks. "For a while."

"A while."

Draco was quiet for a while but Harry could hear him breathing in the quiet. "I've never been in love," he said, small.

Harry wasn't sure if he had, and turned to see him. "What does it feel like?" he said quietly.

"I feel …" Draco looked around the roof, with slight wrinkles in his brow. "Limbless."

"I've crippled you?"

"No," Draco turned to him. "You have the limb," he reached out his hand, to cover Harry's on his stomach. "See."

Harry heard his throat make an odd noise, and laced with his fingers.

"Are you okay with it?" he said, because Draco looked like a lot.

"It doesn't matter," Draco almost whispered, and looked at him, "It doesn't matter what I want now. It's me, now."

Harry touched his thumb.

"I'd be arguing with my self," he said. "It's beyond, or it is, me."

Harry understood, and stretched out silently.

Draco breathed, and moments passed eaten up in his air, until he said, "They're never going to accept us."

Harry watched him, and didn't know. He brought Draco's hand to his mouth, and kissed a knuckle.

"We have today."

* * *

Kintsukuroi = 'to repair broken with gold'


	37. I

piano thumbs, wallaby, agapantha  
Japanese ink paintings, if you were wondering  
"You are afraid of me, because I talk like a Sphynx" - Jane Eyre

* * *

"People are all the same," Draco would say.

But they weren't.

Ginny came as a force of nature. Like when she flew, she strode in with purpose, hair swinging, a force, and cornered Harry alone. But once she sat she grew prim, board straight, and bit her lip.

Harry looked up from his coffee, eating alone.

"Is it –" Ginny hesitated, looking over his face. "Am I involved in this, in any way."

Harry blinked at her, and put the mug down.

"I just, wanted to know," she said hard, expression strident but shuffled in her seat.

Harry fell into her warm brown stare. "You know."

"Of course I –" Ginny curled her lip and her eyes narrowed, but considered him and shifted closer so their legs touched. Harry looked down to it.

"You're – disappearing, missing half your classes," she said in pieces. "Not to mention, walking around with bloody hickeys and fondling him like a pet –"

"Gin –"

Ginny shot up a hand. "Am I," her eyes pulled at his. "I mean, where do I fit."

Harry had to look away from her, but felt a hand on his knee.

"Come on," she almost whispered.

He looked back and licked his lips. "It's not," he said quietly. "'Cause he's a guy. It's because it's him."

Her face raged, some quick passion, for a moment before evening out. "Okay," she whispered, and seemed to gather something, and said, "Are you happy?"

Harry had to find that thing they'd created, something he could lock into, in her eyes before answering. "Yeah," he said quietly. "As much as I – can."

Ginny looked older, the corners of her mouth turned down.

"Can be," he continued. "As I am."

"As you are, now," Ginny murmured, nodding. She reached to press her thumb under his ear, and it stung something. "Okay."

Sometime after she'd left, Draco slipped in beside him. "Red pest," he stated.

"Careful," Harry said, but groped his leg so Draco moved closer.

"You look battled," he said, and Harry looked up from the table, cast away in the past.

Draco looked petal soft and pale, cool colour and withering. His hair was mussed slightly, and Harry touched his cheek. He had left him in the library, asleep with the books; school didn't accommodate for clockless Draco. "We can go," he said quietly, because he looked still asleep.

Draco just stole his coffee and looked at him thinly, sipping. "Is that what it was like, with her?"

"You would've seen us," Harry said eventually. "In sixth year."

Draco dunked bread in his coffee. "Yes, you were handsy then too."

"Hmm."

"All under the skirt, Gryffindor glory and Quidditch showers, Weasley nests and incest, the like."

Harry stared, and Draco sniffed.

"Jealous, are you."

"Oh very," Draco let the bread fall apart, holding it up, with thin lips. "I think my glares were particularly gruesome that year."

Harry scratched at his stubble, frowning. "No, I think I just watched them more."

"Pining, were you," Draco mocked.

Harry's mouth tweaked a bit, and busied himself with his hands. "What about you and Luca?"

Draco leaned in fluidly, his nails drawing small circles on Harry's leg. "Not a lot of talking."

"Jesus Christ."

Draco squirmed away and laughed in blurts. "Not just that. I'd make up a different story every day."

"You'd lie?"

"No he knew, it was like a game," he knocked back the coffee and settled, shoulders hunched. His eyes went false wide, in his thin tired skin. "Who will I be today."

X

People were all the same.

Not Ron, or Hermione. Their faces held something, for Harry, and they looked at Draco with more than what others did. Or McGonagall, when Harry worked up the nerve to pry, and Hermione frowned at him.

"She was worried about you," she explained, but an adolescence of 'stern' not 'worried' made Harry sit, and re-evaluate the woman.

But people could slot so easily. Faceless heads and herds. "People only talk about themselves," Draco reminded him.

"I get it," Dean said in the dormitory. "The whole rival thing. But it makes no sense." "It's hot," Parvati quipped in the common room. "Who gives and who takes it?" sneered a Ravenclaw blur. It only got worse.

Harry said nothing articulate and Draco said nothing that made sense.

Draco's quill followed Harry's palm lines in class, while Harry wrote slowly. Draco inked them to black webs, an elaborate knit of lines, with dew drops in ink spray. Harry yawned and tucked Draco's hair behind his ear absently, blinking out the window.

Draco stared, enthralled in his work and held it up to Harry's face. "Your future," Draco breathed. "Look."

Harry could smell the smoke set in Draco's hands, and looked at his palm. "Looks pretty grim."

His eyes smiled at Harry. "Black's only black if you make it so."

It was all about from where you sat.

X

In Charms, Draco had spun his chair to sit opposite, in the back of a bustling class, people on their feet and wands out. Harry's mind drifted, watching Draco take notes in that angular way he had for years. Elbow propped, fingers neat and lean, posture straight and his gaze quick on the page.

Harry chewed on his quill, blurry. But when he looked down Draco was drawing.

"Is that Lou?"

"No!" Draco's eyes grew big and wild, posture unchanged. "No, it is something new."

Harry had no idea, but when he peered it was less cat and more deranged, something fictional. "Oh, new."

Sometimes he suspected Draco played an instrument, when he hummed, aimless. It was too clear, in pitched sounds stepping up and down. And that he spoke a language, when he babbled and his 'r's rolled or curdled, his vowels fluffed, when his sex noise collected to words, foreign and far too clear to be ramble. But they were dusty things, put to storage and Harry was quiet.

The thing was, he actually drew well. Harry had proof under his clothes; little ink strokes and blossoms, of shades and depth. Like a tree of webbed branches and clouds of foliage, when it all collected to one great black slash. Draco had woken to Sectumsempra and his eyes grew wider when he saw the exact lines, a replica, on Harry's chest but Harry clutched his wrist and kept him going, closing his eyes.

Draco's Charms notes went to something astronomical, dots and darts of stars, and when Harry reached absently to touch his thumbnail, Draco looked up.

X

That particular night, of a gold spun sky and white page eyes, and dangerous words, was somewhat buried in the bed.

Draco would chirp about alcohol and afterglows. He wouldn't hold Harry's gaze too long, and move like something uncatchable, and hid in enclosures, dig them out in Harry's body and corners in the flat and his mind; hid behind the glass of his eyes and the cage of Harry's ribs.

But Harry knew Malfoy was terrified, so he would wait. Wait for the changeover.

The flip; for their world. For soft pink dawns and pillows, for a slow brew of dusk and slumber. Draco's laugh, when no one was watching; his open face, between Harry's hands. For between lines and modes, between sleep and wake.

A new clockwork to attune to, language to learn.

"I can't imagine you with anyone else." (Found in a stale coffee mug and shrug, 1pm, Great Hall, in between Ginny and Luca)

"I want to wear you." (Found in between Harry's school shirt, 9am, Draco's body)

Cinnamon (Found on Harry's tongue, in between words and coffee, 5am, a post gold kitchen).

Look carefully.

X

In the classroom, Draco looked at him, and Harry could see the moors with cloud break in his eyes, and leaned to rest his head on his hand.

Draco's finger touched his lip under his face. "Planning to fail another class?"

Harry mumbled, and closed his eyes on the desk.

Draco hesitated, before Harry heard a quill drop and he leaned his head next to Harry. "Hmm?"

"Let's go back," Harry whispered, because he shouldn't.

Draco pretended not to hear, and touched his hair, so Harry tilted slightly to meet his lips.

He was soft and cold under Harry, and parted after a moment to whisper, "Everyone would have seen that."

"I don't care," Harry mumbled, but his heart beat something erratic and public.

"Lordy Lord," Draco said quietly, and gave a little gasp. Harry met his pale eyes, open in wonder. "The Saviour is fucking a Death Eater."

Harry shoved a bit, but a smile cracked and he stretched back up. He looked fixedly out the window to cloud cover, to ignore eyes or faces and scratched his neck absently. "Can I?" he said. "Fuck you."

"But the _scandal_ Harry, I'll _impeach_ , _pollute_ your virgin pure," Draco gibbered in quick breaths, leaning back. "Black _snakes_ will grow within, corrupt –"

Harry shoved again. "Shut up."

Draco grinned, and Harry outreached under the table. When Harry got hold between his legs, Draco flicked his head neatly, and poised the quill. "Presumptuous," Draco stated. "Maybe I want you."

"Hmm," Harry pressed harder, so Draco had to squirm, licking his lips.

"I suppose you are the decision maker, or more just blind force. I am indecision."

Harry let him go and stretched back. "I don't really think I ever decided," he frowned. "I think it just happened."

"Typical," Draco flexed his hands around the air and caught Seamus' eye. "Yes, Harry James Potter," he said louder, tousling his hair. "You can fuck me sideways."

Seamus squeaked.

X

The flat is horrendous. Draco looked at it a second longer than he should, before grabbing Harry's arm, and escaping down the hallway.

"Come be sweaty with me," Draco started,

And it ended in the shower, something spent and innocent and cross-legged on the slippery floor.

Draco closed his eyes against the spray, arms stretched up tall so his stomach hollowed, and Harry stretched out one hand to match, back against the cold wall. He joined fingertips, each finger on one of Draco's, like an arch.

Draco pushed against his hand, mouth tweaking and Harry arched his hand so it wouldn't flatten, submit. When he grew gentle, he could feel little arrhythmic quakes, in Draco's fingers and flattened to steady him, but Draco pushed, with a bite of nail.

Draco grinned, and opened his eyes to his hand, releasing Harry. He turned it towards him, palms open, curious.

"It started when he moved in," he said like an observation, brows raised.

Harry plucked gently at a quivering finger. "I thought you weren't aware."

"No," Draco said, lips tighter.

Harry hesitated, "He?" an empty tag that didn't need filling, and Draco looked at him.

Harry looked away.

The shower was like rain, something kept, in a small space with too many people; it was like noise, deaf beats, too much, with a crowd between them, and Harry took Draco's hand.

He guided it to his forearm, the ugly there, and Draco lay there, hesitant. Draco's thumb pressed, between thin bones in his wrist, and looked to it. "Your heart's beating so fast," he whispered.

Harry moved it to the curved mark, and Draco looked up. "Nagini," he said under his breath, and Draco tilted his head slightly.

Harry guided to his chest, to the oval as large as an egg, burned in him in his birthplace and wouldn't look at him in the splash of shower and said, "He lived in me too," and let it lie flat over him, overlapped with his.

"Horcrux," he whispered, and looked to see Draco frown. "Horcrux," he said, and Draco shook his head slowly, eyes careful.

Harry closed his eyes.

X

"Harry,"

Draco said when he was done, when they were at Dumbledore's white tomb with the Death Stick. "Harry," Draco croaked, his mouth buckling down, his eyes a new winter Harry wanted to fall into, and he couldn't really see, his fingers wrinkled old, his eyes all shower spray and blur, like drunken tire. His body dripped like wax, limbs slack, like a Grand untying, and Draco touched every part of him once, in unsure hands and Harry knew part of the water was from him but Draco was crying too.

X

"Sometimes I still feel him," Harry whispered later, both in towels and heads together, backs against the hallway wall. "Buried in me, like –" he touched his old scar.

"I know," Draco said later, "I hear you in your sleep," with a darker kitchen floor and tea and didn't need to say much else.

X

"Why me," Draco said, "with – the Wand," twisting the hawthorn wand in fingers, his eyes wider like something he wanted to snap, to revere.

Harry watched from the pillow, lying on his side, hands tucked under. After a while, he shook his head. "I don't know."

Hours passed, maybe, and he could hear Lou unsettling the flat mess, with creaks and crinkles under his paws. He thought Draco was asleep, but when he looked over his eyes were bright and skyward.

Harry hesitated. "If you hadn't let us – if you had identified us –" he trailed off.

Draco's eyes and lips moved emptily, but after a while spoke. "You don't know that," in a whisper.

Harry watched him long after, but looked away. No, he didn't.

X

Dawn, no sleep.

Draco stroked his cheek, a breath away, eyes a slow trace.

"What's left," he whispered.

He looked at Harry like he could reply, so he looked away; but Draco angled him back.

"No," he held tight, and dropped their foreheads together. "You know."

Harry made an odd noise, a resigned groan like a breath, and Draco kissed him once.

"You've told me," Draco moved into him, his nose on cheek, and whispered like someone would hear. "You've told me. Love underpins."

X

There was something awful in the air, the next day.

He felt hungover and dehydrated out and burnt out, to a thinner slower him. It anaesthetized him, to a sloppy tar body.

Harry had found dark corners in the library alone. He watched pale light touch still air, bone dust.

They didn't speak much, and Draco looked at him like he was a different person, and he felt like the little boy in the cupboard, and the lone son by a shared grave, and Draco didn't say anything when he upturned a bottle of wine and walked in post-sex stomps, with heavy limbs and tingly skin, but they hadn't touched each other either. But he felt just as used up.

There was something awful, but not in –

Draco found and collected him, to the flat; his hands light and everywhere, not speaking, humming for Harry's silence; he walked him around, sat on his lap, took him to bed.

Harry could see a tick in Draco's neck, a little pulse.

A wrinkle in his chin, when he hummed to fill the night.

Draco pressed soft lips to his ear, and spoke with soft force. "I want you to fuck me."

Harry waited until he moved back, to see him. "Isn't that what we're doing," he said quietly, almost polite. But they both knew, and Draco traced his lips, watching his finger.

"If you want," he said, and met Harry's eyes. Harry thought that surely that was wrong – surely someone should be cradled, shouldn't there be grief, time and solemn nods; acknowledgement, a white banner or flag, some official commemoration; there should be more tea and forehead kisses and sweet dreams – isn't that Post; his throat shouldn't be dry from wine, his stomach hollowed from no appetite, and Draco had smoked enough to smell like soil –

Draco squeezed at Harry lightly, and felt so real.

Harry nodded briefly. He moved to meet his gentle kiss halfway, and Harry licked to taste him, before Draco spun in his arms, to shove his back into Harry's chest.

Harry watched him get ready, tracing behind his ear with soft fingers, and kissing the bumps of his neck. He tasted his pulse, the beginnings of salt. Draco collected his arm, to wind around his waist and tuck in, and Harry pushed in.

"Okay?" he said.

And Draco was breathing hard like he'd been running. He nodded, neck and shoulders stretching like in sleep, and swept a hand over to clutch Harry's thigh bone. In a large grip, rocking him back and forth with needling fingers, and Harry followed. His hand overlapped Draco's. Then intertwined their fingers. Clenching his hand tight. Then his wrist, sliding up. A crushing grip. Shackle. In furious blinding heat he pushed, shoved Draco onto his stomach, hands scrambling for purchase on the headboard and fucked him rough.

Harry unclenched his hair, after, and rolled off. "Sorry, maybe I should have – have been more gentle," he licked his lips.

"No," Draco laughed once, a huff. "No, I wouldn't have – expected anything else."

Harry moved to see him, his face half lost in pillow. "I lose myself," he said quietly, and touched his cheek once. "I don't know."

"I know, I see that," Draco's eyes took him in. "I love it." He watched his own finger, draw a line down his face, from his temple to his lips. And Harry was brought back; he remembered Draco adjusting himself, he remembered Draco's words, his shock, his high sounds and nails, to claw, to get at Harry; how human he felt.

Harry closed his eyes, breath a light shudder, and moved into his hand.

"You're something else," he heard Draco say.

* * *

"All imitations, mirages, crystallized; I can't get at them, my categorical chess pieces,  
Be a painting for me darling" - A


	38. Marina

dawn run to the hills, "What world is this ... what shores of what worlds" - S  
TW: themes of mental illness

* * *

Harry did what he was always meant to do.

Draco thread absently through his hair, between states of sleep. "I think," he murmured slowly. "Not here."

Harry felt his breast lull under him, and nodded. "Not here."

The morning clocked on in slow steps, a pale beige creep, as Draco teetered on edges. On the balcony, on his quick feet, moving back and forth in the flat. Harry watched, on the couch, and knew Hogwarts was a No today. He sipped on leftover herbal tea, as the morning dripped on achingly slow. Eventually, Harry stood up.

X

Harry had Black Days. It took him a whole summer to notice, that some days were worse, without cause. But it was Draco that christened it: a 'night' day, he said, with the black still underside of day, becoming day and becoming Harry, for a while.

Draco's Red Days were unnerving. He soared, a ball of energy inside him lit him up. Erratic and impulsive, preaching about everything and nothing, springing ideas and unmet plans. Laughing at himself, playing himself rather than being himself.

But Harry hated his Grey Days more. His vacancy; he could look empty, his eyes a shell and voice an echo. He moved like skin and bone and dust, half-aware of what he was doing and touching him took a second longer for him to look over.

X

He started with the bags. Harry picked through things, scalvaging, with careful feet. He hauled glass shards and cigarette butts into garbage bags; they were black and hollow, as if bottomless. Ash and freckles of burnt paper, dusting to grey in his hands.

Clinks of glass bottles, and ripped and scrunched pale paper like bone. He found corks and caps. Tobacco debris, like black charcoal, littered everywhere.

Draco dusted in silent feet, or sat up on the kitchen bench, legs swinging and touching nothing.

Harry chucked fruit skins and seeds and cores, eroded with pale flecks. And ground coffee on the surfaces like wasted sand. He wiped down the rings on the table, scrapped back the gravelly residue to blank canvases. He found a sticky liquor stain on the floor, a bright thing they didn't drink, but remembered Lee and Ava. Dead roots, in pine and clustered it in handfuls.

Harry tied up the bags neatly.

He pretended not to watch Draco place his silver ring in the centre of the room. A lone grave.

X

Harry collected all the books, scattered loosely around, and restacked the long line on the wall. Stacks of all sizes in a row, and Draco hovered and leafed through one.

"There's this story," he said. "Where two boys go to a river and one says: you know, none of this is real. It's an illusion. The river is nonsense. And the other gets angry and drowns him."

Harry looked up from the floor. "Let me guess," he said. "I'm the angry one."

Draco laughed and said, "Of course," but shook his head slowly.

All sorts; of yellowing paper and unravelling spines, the thick white chunks of encyclopaedias, of maps and matched sets, unthreading binding like fabric, and small pocket ones. Harry built walls from them, trying to find patterns but Draco swept in and stacked like a mountain range, all sizes.

Draco fell into a bout of high energy, swinging and spinning, so once Harry had finally finished Draco was stacked up on the wall with it all, collapsed long limbed, and submerged. At one point, Draco swung back up and announced a "tea break".

Harry prepped tea and thought about rivers, but stopped when he saw Draco undressing. "Oh, tea break," was all he said, and dropped everything.

"Would you still date girls?" Draco asked with Harry's fingers inside him.

He shifted on the couch, taking Draco's weight. "Would you," Harry couldn't look away from his neck lines, tightening.

"I'd say no," Draco said, and gasped a hitched noise. "But I've gone there."

"I – don't even know," Harry didn't try. "What are you," he propped Draco's leg tighter round his hip, and elbows pressed into his shoulders.

"I haven't dated," Draco sank in his lap. "Naughty things."

"Would you even date anyone else, now," he tried to catch his eye but Draco's head was thrown back.

"Date? No," Draco breathed. "Anyone else? I couldn't say."

"You're so contradictory."

"I'm not both things, silly," Draco's body twisted when his fingers did. "I'm neither."

X

Harry found all the jars and bottles, the mugs and pots. Clear, mottled glass and pottery splinters, leaky jars.

Draco took some things randomly from his hands, in snatches and curious fumblings, holding things up to revere and frown, or crowd possessively with his body, or fling away.

Harry cleaned them on the bench, with cloths and water. Rustic clay, rough sand under his hands and concrete cracks, the ceramic jars smooth as nails with glazed ridges.

Draco held a glass bottle to the pale light to swill the rot. "Cockroach," he said, nodding to it.

"No," Harry said, because Draco was frowning, and put down the cloth. "Look at what you've done. With your job. And Muggle money, and electricity, and clothes."

"Yes," Draco's finger slithered in water skin on the bench, and Harry could see his pale reflection in the ripples. "Off the grid."

"No," Harry said again. "It's," he hesitated, "something."

Draco nodded slowly and pottered around while Harry was messy and overflowed the place. Draco squinted into a newly scraped out pot, and said quietly, "Somethingness."

The array crowded the bench, little clean heads, a rock road of flaws.

X

It was not a job for one day.

The place slowly thinned down, paled out. There was more floor to see, more light and less things for it to touch, and a raw sting of cleaning product in the air and on surfaces. Shiny clean.

Until there was no awaiting hold for anything to be held.

The bed thinned to barebones, a mattress and wooden frame so at Hogwarts Draco shoved him in a closet and attacked him fully clothed. The bathroom lost toothbrushes, the fogged hand prints in the shower glass were cleaned away, so Harry clapped a hand over Draco's mouth in a bathroom stall, while boys outside knew no different.

But it felt just as gripless and shifty, and it was dinner at the Hall when Draco leaned in, candlelight softening his face, to whisper, "Not here."

And Harry had to nod, sitting tightly together, between loud crowds and hungry hands and noise, so Draco's legs almost overlapped his.

"We're getting closer," he said.

He carried his life in his pockets and shoes, and had never felt so adrift.

But then he remembered that Draco always hid his face when he slept, he remembered him walking barefoot around the edge of the cabin, watching his feet tread dew, and when he twisted around and spread out in the bed like something that wanted to be served, and he'd feel something debunk in him, like a crumbling sand foundation, to a still. And he knew, in a lot of ways, it didn't matter where.

And Harry didn't know what belonged in boxes, what could fit behind cardboard flaps and what belonged to rooms like the immovable stains and cracks. What part of them could be taped tight over the mouth, and chucked in styrofoam.

He wanted to slip it all in his pocket.

But Draco said just because things curled around their feet or knocked on their door didn't mean they couldn't just shake it off laughing; he talked about accidents, and coincidence, and how easily everything could just burn.

He'd stand still and frown at things, dripping ash onto it.

Draco talked about Obliviating the landlord in the same way he'd been Confunding him out of rent.

"Isn't that stealing?"

"Is it if he can't remember?"

So Harry bit into him hard enough in the shower so that it wouldn't drain down and away, so that he'd walk out with it. He made sure Draco's clothes and hair were never well-kept or sterile, so he always wore the night before on him. As if on the day they walked out, Draco would be tagged and clipped and packed up in cardboard as well, with all the bric-a-brac of them.

But then he saw Draco's syrupy sweet eyes and tears, laughed into hysterics, he felt Draco's smile itch under his own mouth, and how he rearranged boxes and pulled things up from the bottom and reorganised, chastising Harry, and he thought that on the day Draco teetered on the cardboard flap, he'd pack himself in.

X

Harry found all the candles, the ones lit by his first arrival.

He sat on the floor, yawning, until he ended up stretching back flat, tapping his fingers tonelessly on his cheek. Draco peppered the candles around him, taking time to align them in a perfect orbiting circle.

Harry fell into a dreamy lull, watched Draco sit and move around shiftily, leaning up on his knees. It was evening warmth; rosy reds and amber, warm yellow, and Draco held up his large hands, against the stream of sunlight. He moulded it with his hands, making angles and pathways, to new gold streams, as the sun set in harsh rays.

Harry grabbed his floating hand, and frowned at the red rim of skin, light puncturing through. Draco grinned down at him, straddling him, an amber streak on the side of his face. He created pillars of light, straightening his fingers, and flirted with it, to flickers, with dancing fingers. Pressed it with the pads of his fingers, like musical strings, watching it closely.

Harry gripped Draco's thighs and climbed up to meet him, but he overreached in the quick jolt, and toppled them. Draco laughed wildly, fallen on his side and his legs clung Harry's hips, pulling him close.

He licked Harry's lips and stroked his hair gently, before moving back a bit, and Harry could see the light play with his pale hair, in gold glitters, and set off his eyes.

Draco's eyes were amber fire. "I think – I think," he looked over Harry's face, all alight and whispered, "if this happened, with us."

"If – no, it is," Harry whispered, but Draco was caught up in something.

"If it did," a flicker of smile played with his mouth, before evening out flat, but his eyes – "it would be _it_."

Harry clambered over him, holding his wrists down. "You're so stupid."

"No," Draco eyes widened a little. "Emotionally unavailable."

"Oh, good," Harry rocked against him gently. "I'm emotionally repressed."

Draco gripped him to move, and laughed in loud breaths, and Harry grabbed his lower lip until his eyes engaged him.

"It would be …" he encouraged, and Draco nipped his thumb.

"Yes," Draco nodded, and dropped his legs. "Harry. It would be it."

Harry had thrown out the lighters and matches prematurely, and Draco had blinked at him; but right now, looking down at Draco, he felt the same impulse. Draco didn't need it.

Harry nodded slowly back, and said quietly, "Of course", and Draco lifted his arms out of shadow, watching it light up under his own attentive eye, his capable hands.

He carved light under his touch.

X

Harry had rounded up all the plants, the soil crumbly in his hands. Pale, carroty roots and spindly hairs, dirty brown. The greyish vines fell in long curls, connective like long webs between pots. Dried out thin sticks, straw and hay.

He started by passing them to Draco, because he still didn't get it – but Draco looked at him oddly. So he chucked them, moving around the balcony while Draco burnt something on the stove.

Lou joined him, pawing at the papery entrails of plants, flaking to the ground. Roses pricked him, ashy purple petals and dark green stems. He was grabby at bristles and heath, all pastel and pale lavender. And leaves over the floor, in olive green.

Harry stood with hands on hips, looking at the new, the barren. Draco came up behind him outside and wrapped arms around his waist, and Harry still carried the balcony smell and colour on his hands so Draco mashed his face in his earthy hands, before hiding his face. He mumbled, so Harry looked over his shoulder. "Hmm?"

"I feel like you've climbed inside my body."

Harry tried to spin to look at him, because he sounded small and full, but Draco wrapped around his chest. Harry looked at the placeless windows across the street for a while. He touched his hand. "How about you climb inside mine?"

Then Draco did pull back, and Harry turned to see his eyes brighten.

"No," Harry laughed. "Not that. Well," he frowned, looking away. "Maybe that, but –" Draco clung, scratching at his arms to get his attention, his smile shining. "Calm down – No, I'll take you somewhere."

Draco stopped, a nail digging a bit. "Take me," he said, a blank question.

Harry smiled at him.

Later, Draco sat behind him, on the stiff arm of the couch, legs wrapping and fingers prodding his ear and the bones of his neck, wet with fruit juice. Harry was too shifty, trying to spin around. He liked to watch Draco eat too much.

Draco collapsed on him, and blinked at the place.

"We're taking the cat, aren't we."

"Oh, yes," Harry nodded. "We're taking the cat."

X

When Draco pulled out the paint, Harry almost didn't want to ask.

But he did, and Draco just said he "salvaged it", and went about wrecking technicolour havoc.

Draco started talking about finales and got Harry to suck him off on the balcony, trying to make eye contact with the windows on the adjacent building, playing his game and imagining the stories of people below on the street, and talking and laughing to the sun. When Harry tuned in, he realised Draco was talking in circles, something he did when he climbed up and up – Harry didn't even know what he was saying, but was nodding, and wanted to look up but the fingers got tighter in his hair.

Occasionally, Harry wondered –

But Draco was there, aware. He was just more.

Harry took him like something he wanted to lap at, and Draco became wordless.

Harry watched Draco work free-form, timeless; he splattered and flicked paint with his bare hands, at all times and any time, or just sat on the floor and looked at the walls. He finger-painted surfaces, wrote obscene words and absurd, unreal pictures. Any explanation he tried was lost on Harry.

With intense concentration, or wild and aimless, and Harry just sat. Until Draco painted Harry a part of it, his hair licked red, skin blue and green, and purple kisses on his face. Harry had to smile at him, moving around like he was rolling in it, his chaotic laugh mixing with the flamboyancy, the art, as much part of it as the bombastic wall rainbow and slippery floor – he looked over his shoulder at Harry, a pink collarbone peeking out, a green drip in the hair on his face, and violet on his lip as he smiled wide.

By the end, Draco was all colour.

* * *

Ginnungagap, Nifelheim, Muspelheim  
The yawning void and its neighbours, fog and fire


	39. Opium

"The world is changed because you are made of ivory and gold. The curves of your lips rewrite history." - O.W, holly and couch doze, The House That Dripped Blood - Mountain Goats

* * *

EPILOGUE

The Place

* * *

He didn't know why he Apparated to the front, a proper introduction, like a guest.

The empty square was just as familiar and stale. Distantly, he heard the scrape of rubbish, unsettled by flat wind between tall buildings. The shabbiness – broken windows and chimneys, the street grime and gutter trash – met him, and he led across dull grass.

He turned to Draco. "Number Twelve, Grimmauld Place."

"Pardon?"

He watched Draco turn, face rapt at what Harry could already see.

Harry pulled at his jumper,

"I haven't been here in a while."

Draco looked, almost patiently - at the window scum, the peeled black paint - and Harry felt something uneasy, like regret. But - Draco moved, and picked something from the broken gate. Climbing ivy, grown in sparse ropes and crispy, dead.

He pocketed it. "Okay."

Harry climbed the stone steps and touched the silver serpent doorknocker - clicks and chains rang behind the door, in a metallic clang, and Draco looked at him. He passed the threshold, and was plunged into a sudden, unnatural closet darkness. Harry grabbed his wrist,

"Close your mouth and hold your breath."

"I'm sorry?"

" _Severus Snape?_ "

Harry moved forward slightly at the bodiless whisper, "I didn't kill you," he said in a loose murmur, and was shot in the mouth, as his tongue clamped up. Something at the end of the hall exploded in a puff, indistinct and sudden but Draco was still stiff behind him and exhaled,

"The fuck."

"It's – from the war," Harry said, and turned around to see Draco's wide eyes, taking it in. "The Order, you know."

Draco looked at him. "This is –"

Harry nodded and looked around, at the dank, tight hallway. Everything papery and peeling, withering and wrinkled like an old book made of human skin. The damn troll's leg, still knocked over at the end with the lingering dust cloud –

And for a moment, he completely forgot why he wanted to come here.

"Grimmauld Place."

"Oh," Draco said after a moment, breathily. "I get it. It's all grime and mould."

"Not quite."

He felt Draco shadow him down the hallway, the portraits breathing on either side, and stopped at the staircase. He touched the chipped banister.

"Your," Draco said. "House."

"Hmm?"

"Ancestral House," and he sounded like someone else.

Harry saw the small, uneasy downward curl of his lip. "I inherited it. Sirius."

Draco nodded in slow slopes, regarding him. "Of course," he whispered.

Harry peered up at the climbing blocks of staircases. Moth-eaten curtains hid doors around him. Some he hadn't been through.

Back at the flat, Draco had asked - not really, but he poured Harry's coffee in a slow, slow clattering drip and held his gaze steadily in an empty kitchen - so Harry said, "The next place is heavier" - like a warning, because he didn't know what else to say.

He left Draco there, walking slowly and touching nothing, while things watched him on the walls. It wasn't entirely unoccupied since the war. But it hadn't lost that feeling of belonging to dying, or dead, people. A waiting room.

It still felt like he was breaking into it.

He found Draco in the drawing room, walking slowly along the wall, and peering up at the connective tree.

"I could never stay here, too long," and Draco turned around to him quickly, as if caught.

He looked thinner, face more hollowed, against the dark high ceilings and shadows.

"I spent most of the summer at the Burrow – the Weasley's."

"Yes," Draco said, unfocused, and Harry wasn't sure if he was listening. "There's one like this in the Manor."

Harry looked as well, and the Black tapestry was just as heavy and morbid and final – with long script of languages around the horizontal stretch of olive green, the magical beasts perched in the corners, Gryffins and Sphynx' and serpents, and the many people looking back at him, in their regal clothes and gold banner Names and straight-back posture. He wondered how many were still alive.

"Why are there holes?" Draco touched one, the raggedy burnt edges and black puncture, with a single finger, before jerking back at the name – 'Sirius Black'.

Harry moved closer. "It's whoever's been disowned."

"Ah," Draco whispered. "Of course."

He sounded wistful, like an older man and Harry touched his elbow. Draco turned to him, eyes lidded and blank.

"Preserve the pristine prestige."

X

Grimmauld was an antiquity.

It was a monarch with a stoic face, looking down on him as he toured inside. Harry felt like a different person from any other time he'd been here; he felt slipped into the skin of his past self, too.

The inhabitants – the threadbare carpet, gas lamps, lit and flickering, the cobwebbed chandeliers, watermarks and peeling wallpaper – felt compressed between the pages of a Great book, thrown into his lap.

He walked around, and kept his hands to himself.

Draco grew confident and curious, and withdrew the shelf secrets in bolted cupboards and in plain sight. He found an opal-encrusted silver snuffbox, bronzed fruit and a chest of ebony engraved with Runes and centaurs, sheaths of lime green silk and plum chiffon. Glass cut perfume bottles, lilac oils and candles impaled in skull enamel; he smoked from cigarettes sticks and pipes, emitting chimney soot over his fingers. All the pigeonholed treasure and trash – sapphire tiaras and black lace veils, scarlet rouge and Turkish delight, getting white powder over his lips and fingertips. Fire-pokers and umbrellas sharpened like knifes, mouldy ancestry books and white doilies, canes with snakeheads. He treated things with delicate fingers and worship, made nests in corners of things he liked, or flippancy – he hissed at the things scuttling behind velvet curtains, and dropped statuettes and long instruments of reeds and brass over the banisters.

The buffer was Harry, who didn't know how to treat anything.

He found Draco sitting at a vanity, looking at himself in the three doors of mirrors. The room was slightly feminized – the hostile, stale must had a dark glamour.

Harry watched him for a while, at the wooden curls coming off the doors, like plump, ugly roses. Draco put on lipstick in gentle strokes, unblinkingly, and there were scraped hard curls of dark red paste on the floor around him.

Harry notched onto his shoulder blade briefly. The ruby bloodied his lips, and softened, paled his face, and threw off balance his sharp collarbones, broad shoulders.

Draco felt part of the vanity, so Harry looked for familiar.

"What do people say about your scars?"

"Men didn't mind," Draco was utterly still, painting slowly with a dark gold tube. "Added to the _mystique_ of me."

"Mystique."

"Yes," Draco turned to smile up at him. "I am beautiful."

Harry touched the hair by his face. "You are."

Draco turned back, his thumbnail scraping at his lower lip, to sharpen the red edge.

"What would you say?"

"You could guess," Draco said, and he probably could. He'd make up a different story every time.

Soon, Draco was licking and biting off the lipstick. "It would make every time a threesome," he said. He met his eyes in the mirror, and Harry frowned. "You were there every time."

Harry went to bed with a crick in his neck. And he realised he had memorized the floor, he could visualize where carpet would seam uglily to another pattern, in his circular route. He found he didn't really want to look up, during the evening.

Because Draco fit at Grimmauld too well. The fine boned, blue-blood angles of his face, the regal, long lines of his neck, the fall of his hair, moonstone eyes; it fit the high ceilings, the classical woodwork and rosettes, the ivory embroidery – it blended like portraiture. Harry curled his nose at the bad smell of his marble legs hanging off an antique couch, at the elegant hollows of his thumb and wrist perching a china teacup. It was effortless.

He also didn't fit at all. Draco seemed to sense this too – so took off all his clothes in a slow strip throughout the night, he spat disgusting, cheap swears at the portraits and left a slime behind him, of ash and smoke and knocking things over, letting them smash.

Harry let him.

The orange streetlamps outside made the rooms colder, falser. Harry woke up gasping and – the Place was heavy with ghosts and murk, so he went to find Draco, with his nudity and lipstick, at dawn.

Draco sipped from a champagne flute, stretched out, feline, on a royal blue velvet loveseat in the powder room. He wore an eggshell lace eye mask on his forehead, and tasselled earplugs, at one with the décor.

"Did you sleep," Harry said, climbing over him. "You look ridiculous."

"I slept in dust," he swung his legs over Harry daintily. "Like the rest of the spawn here."

X

Harry woke in a black den, curled in heavy silk and shadows in the small room. Draco opened the door and plush curtains to let the eyelet lace breathe, over the grimy window. Pipes dripped around him, with a sliver of breeze, and Harry eventually climbed out.

He found Draco back at the tapestry, drawn there like a centrepiece. He carried a crystal bottle loosely, like an orb with a jewel stopper. Harry came up behind him.

"I don't know family trees."

"I know too much of family trees."

Draco moved voyeuristically, the orb dangling at a tilt between fingers, and took a sip.

"Are we cousins or something?"

"I used to know," Draco stopped at his name. "I looked it up when I was really young. It seemed important."

"Yes," Harry nodded, his hands on hips. "I seemed important."

Draco bent to peer at his name, murmuring – and Harry was sure he was going to close up or spiral out – but all he said, primly, was, "I would never wear that colour."

Harry stopped at the usual pothole in the map, and felt a small curl of fingers at his lower back, gentle.

"Would I have liked Sirius?" Draco said, in a small murmur, and an old pang hit his throat.

"Yeah," he said. "Yeah, he was chaotic too."

Draco stayed, but Harry left – to do, move – to clean and organise his shoulder bag, with the bric-a-brac of the flat shrunk into it.

When he came back, Draco had a hand pressed to a particular spot, and didn't seem to notice him. Harry hesitated, watching his finger trace a gold thread.

He came up close, almost close enough to press into him, and thumbed at the hair near his neck. "She loved you," he whispered.

"Don't," Draco whispered, harsh, and tilted his head away a bit.

Harry climbed under his shirt, hands flat against his ribs. "Okay," he kissed his neck, exploring his stomach. "Come here –" he sucked lightly, his fingers crawling, skimming under his pants, to find hair. "Take – feel better."

Draco shook his head, and stepped out of him. He touched the dirty tapestry, quiet for a while. "I want to smoke."

"Okay."

"I want –"

"I'll light it."

It got a little darker, on the floor in silence, smoking and drinking the dusty brandy, the green curtains swaying next to them like mossy lungs. Before Harry thought about food, and took Draco's hand.

The basement kitchen was cavernous, a deep belly, of rough stone walls and a roaring fire – before he saw her. He dropped Draco's hand, moving forward with a quicker step, and Andromeda turned around.

She looked older, her brown hair wispier, but her smile so soft against the hard, worn lines of the Place, her hand on Teddy's hair so gentle, that Harry leaned down to kiss her forehead.

"Dromeda," he smiled.

"I thought I heard something," she said, familiar and soft spoken, and stood up. "Harry," her arms came around him briefly, and Harry pulled back to smile at Teddy.

"Look!" he crouched to see him better, his pumpkin orange hair and bright mouth. "You're so big," he whispered, and trailed fingers to Teddy's mouth, so he could suck them in.

"Do I smell brandy?" Andromeda said.

Harry mumbled, indistinct – then straightened and spun quickly, to see Draco's expression. "Oh," he said, static. "I forgot."

Draco was frozen by the doorframe, arms outstretched a little beside him, as if ready to take flight.

"Draco," Andromeda breathed, unfamiliarly like a question, and Draco took a staggered step back, his eyes wider. He clutched the frame, and swept back up the stairs in quick, unsteady feet.

They looked at each other. "I forgot," Harry repeated.

Andromeda hummed gently, and looked down at Teddy. "I understand. He wouldn't have seen – anyone since last May."

"Yeah." Teddy made fists to get his attention, but Harry was chewing his cheek.

"I heard, the rumours," she said, quieter, "with you two – I didn't believe …"

"Yeah," he repeated, dumb. "It's – you don't have to – understand –"

Andromeda stared at him. "His mother – we're in contact," she sat down lightly, "remember that, if he –"

Harry nodded quickly. "Yeah, yeah I –" he turned. "I'm going to find him."

"Sure," she said, baby soft, to Teddy.

Harry felt knit, into the circle of them, before walking out the room. He remembered the rootless summer he spent, what he came home to – drifting between places, bleary and lost, like something leftover, out to dry – as if he was unable to wake up fully, or place himself fully. He remembered Andromeda's patience, her gentle hand and Teddy wide open, newborn expression. He looked at Harry with something like awe. Kreacher got too used to days off, and Harry took over the cooking, and Andromeda took over the cleaning, her household magic well-practiced. One night stuck out in his pinwheel summer, when they fell asleep in the twin bedroom after hot chocolate, and Teddy curled into his neck, with his hot breath and chocolate hair, with Andromeda snuffling in the other. He remembered Ron's eager return to normal, and Hermione's concern and helping hand, and how he wanted to ask to join whenever they went to bed, but they kissed now and other new shiny couple things, locked away. Ginny didn't like coming, and Harry stopped inviting her, and the Burrow become his second couch-surf home; he woke up in a different room every morning. People stopped feeding him, asking how and where he slept, and Harry drifted into the independence people thought he had.

Harry found him at the first landing, in a bathroom, and closed the door behind him. Draco sat in the black basin, fiddling idly with the silver serpent taps, the brandy orb sitting between his legs. Harry climbed in.

"Draco –" he started, and pulled himself between his long legs. "I'm sorry."

"She looks too much like," Draco whispered, the room lightless and his eyes wide and glassy.

"I know," Harry mumbled, rubbing his arms. "I thought that too, the first time."

When Draco finally looked at him, Harry curled his hands in his.

"Come downstairs."

Draco pressed his lips together.

"Come downstairs."

"Okay," Draco whispered. "I'm cold."

Andromeda cut and fed them bread in the kitchen, warm and crusty, and the big fire flickered over Draco's pallor, with a blanket around his shoulders, hunched into it. The copper pots and pans hanging from the dark roof shined, glowed rosy, and Harry served tea in inappropriately lavish goblets. Draco's eyes were bright, rimmed – but it was Teddy he was watching. "Do you want to meet him," Harry said, distinct and quiet.

It took a while for Draco to look over. "What," he murmured.

Andromeda looked away politely. "Come on," Harry took his hand in one finger and led him to the other side of the table. "It's alright." He knelt down. "This is Draco, Teddy."

Teddy blinked at him, in gentle awe, and then studied Draco with soft, violet eyes – his hair went white paper blond. "Do you like his hair," Harry touched it gently. "I do too."

Teddy looked delighted, and Draco was blinking, as if to clear his vision. Harry smiled swiftly at him, before picking up Teddy under the arms, and jostling him against his hip. "Explore?" he said, and Teddy was grabby at his shirt.

He made off, and Teddy tried to touch the walls, leaning dangerously, as they walked. "Draco," he said behind him, and Draco shrugged out of the blanket.

In the hallway, Teddy reached out, making grabby fists at Draco.

"Take it," Harry said, and Teddy gurgled with Draco did, but Harry was watching Draco.

"Oh," he breathed, as little pudgy fingers wrapped around a couple of his. "Harry."

They walked up and down stairs, disturbing the low sleep of the Place and peering behind doors, and Teddy's head bobbed in Harry's arm, mouth open as he looked.

"He has my hair."

"He likes it," Harry said, and Teddy looked at Draco as much as the house.

In Sirius' room, Teddy huffed at the posters and Draco came close behind him.

"I'm a little drunk."

"That's okay," Harry reached over and drew him in, kissing under his jaw, because Draco never cared if he was drunk.

Draco stared at him. "You have a kid," he whispered.

"Sort of," Teddy watched Harry's face as he listened. "I share him."

"He's sweet," Draco murmured.

Harry smiled at him. "Tell him that, he loves being loved." He did – and he was, universally. At the Burrow, and Andromeda's place, Bill and Fleur's, with George at the shop; he was something bright.

"So this is your body," Draco's stare was wide and strange, and Harry took a moment to understand.

"Yeah, I –" he looked around as if it could tell him something. "I'm dislocated."

"Yes," Draco looped hair at his ear so it curled over his glasses. "We're messy."

"I love you," Harry said.

Draco made an odd frown, a twist, and then a stiff noise in his throat when Teddy reached to pluck loosely at his chin, his eyes softening to something young, so Harry wrapped around his waist and kissed him hard on the mouth.

"Harry," Draco pulled him off. "Christ –"

"I'll put him down," he murmured, pulling Draco back in. "I want –"

Draco looked around, so Harry got his jaw instead. "This place – do you actually want to –"

Harry glanced at the dark room, the gold and crimson layers, over the grime. "Black's only black if you make it so," and Draco scoffed. "Come on, let me –"

"You're so strange."

"Let – I'll suck –"

"You're holding a _baby_."

It wasn't the first time he'd had sex in Sirius' bed, but there was something a little different about how the almost naked girls on the wall posters watched. He loved the sounds Draco made, low surprise and high things, caught at his teeth like he couldn't help himself.

"He's your cousin," Harry said, "you know." He was fully dressed and indulgent, at Draco's body, bare and spread luxuriously.

"Everyone's my cousin."

"But he's, like, _close_ to you."

Draco clapped his thighs around his face. " _You're_ close to me."

Harry grinned and got free. He watched a spider construct a web on the dresser for a while.

"She won't – your parents," he said.

"Don't – stop that -" And Draco's eyes flashed, when he caught them. "Don't – don't _ever_ – fucking go there, Potter," his face stone stoic, as if he hadn't just fucked the inside of his cheek.

"Okay," he kissed his inner thigh.

Draco hesitated. "I treat you like shit."

"No," he trailed up, licking. "Sometimes."

"Sometimes."

"I don't care," Harry licked his scars close, "I don't care," and Draco watched with an old expression.

Andromeda and Teddy left before it got dark, and Draco smoked in the attic, Harry's jumper rolled at his thin wrists, leaning at a dingy window instead of saying goodbye.

"I've been here," Draco said, low like a confession, when Harry found him and looked down at the cigarette. "It's just – last time I was here – I was …"

Harry watched him, but he just looked tentatively at his smoke.

It made too much sense to him – and Harry wanted inarticulate Draco – so he shook the attic structure in loud stomps, the rotted wood that swelled and shrank, the pipes that groaned, until dust fell like butterflies – and Draco laughed soon, and got in a swearing match with something in the corner, the dust decorating his hair to rose white.

"We're here," Harry said. "We're here now."

* * *

I may return to this but I wanted to put a bookend to it, and I imagined that this recircling back to the past would ultimately start their future: leaving, travelling, discovering. So, it's a bookmark as well as a bookend.

Also, look out for something new in the works. visit my tumblr if u want to chat

"The first role in life is to assume a pose. What the next is, no one has figured out." O.W


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